A story from Leila Aboulela to stir the heart and awaken vital conversations about love.Maryam will avenge her father’s death alone. With her amulet, she abandons all to find the person who made the order to kill him.
An elegantly written and highly informative account of a group of Americans living in Paris when the city fell to the Nazis in June 1940.When the German army occupied Paris in the early hours of 14 June 1940, a large American community awaited them. Although the US Ambassador had advised those without vital business to leave when war broke out in 1939, almost five thousand remained. Many had professional and family ties to Paris, and most had a peculiarly American love for the city that was rooted in the bravery of the thousands of Frenchmen who volunteered to help win American independence after 1776. As citizens of a neutral nation, they believed they had little to fear. They were wrong. For four hard years, from the summer of 1940 until US troops occupied Paris in August 1944, Americans were intimately caught up in the city's fate.Those who stayed behind were an eccentric, original and disparate group. Charles Bedaux, a Frenchborn, naturalized American millionaire, had played host to the Duke of Windsor's wedding in 1937 and went on throwing lavish parties for European royalty and high-ranking Nazi officials. Countess Clara Longworth de Chambrun, who accepted the legitimacy of the Vichy regime, dealt with anyone, including the Nazis, to keep her beloved American Library of Paris open. Sylvia Beach attempted to run her famous English-language bookshop, Shakespeare & Company, whilst providing help to her Jewish friends and her colleagues in the Resistance. Dr Sumner Jackson, wartime chief surgeon of the American Hospital in Paris, risked his life aiding Allied soldiers to escape to Britain and resisting the occupier from the first day.Charles Glass has written an exciting, fast-paced and elegant account of the moral contradictions faced by Americans in Paris during France's most dangerous years. His discovery of letters, diaries, war documents and police files reveals as never before how American expatriates were trapped in a web of intrigue, collaboration and courage. This is an unforgettable tale of treachery by some, cowardice by others and unparalleled bravery by a few.
War-time love story set in Abyssinia, Eritrea and the Yemen 1935-1945. Amedeo Guillet is still alive and living in County Meath, Ireland. Khadija is lost.This is the story of Amedeo Guillet – an Italian calvary officer who was sent out to Abyssinia as part of Mussolini’s army to establish and command a troupe of 2,000 Spahis – or Arabic calvary. He met and fell in love with Khadija – a beautiful Ethiopian Muslim. Together they held up the British lorries heaving up the mountain road to Asmara and blew up the important Ponte Aosta. Eventually captured, Amedeo went on the run disguised as an Arab, eventually making it to Yemen, only to be thrown in jail.This is a rare view of the Second World War from an Italian perpective; particularly valuable are the chapters that tell the story of Italian resistance to the Nazis, and their subsequent withdrawal from Italy in 1943.There are few stories more cinemagraphic than this – Fascist Italy, his early years in Ethiopia commanding the Cossack-like Spahis, the brutal Abyssinian war waged by the Duce, Italian and British colonial rivalry; Amedeo led the last ever cavalry charge the British army faced (Eritrea 1941 – they were massacred by tanks and sub-machine guns), defeat and guerrilla warfare against the British; then flight, disguised as an Arab, imprisonment in the Yemen and a great love lost as he leaves his beloved Khadija behind to face her future alone and returns to Italy, to his fiancée and a career as a distinguished Italian diplomat and Arabist.Amedeo is still alive and living in County Meath, Ireland. Sebastian O’Kelly is a journalist for the Mail and Telegraph and has Amedeo’s full co-operation in writing this book.This is a very valuable and absolutely stunning story, beautifully told by O’Kelly.
SHORTLISTED FOR THE ORWELL PRIZE 2017#1 SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER‘The best political book of the year’ Andrew Marr‘A superb work of storytelling and reporting. Sets new benchmark for the writing of contemporary political history’ GuardianThe only book to tell the full story of how and why Britain voted to leave the EU. Based on unrivalled access to all the key politicians and their advisors – including Boris Johnson, Michael Gove, George Osborne, Nigel Farage and Dominic Cummings, the mastermind of Vote Leave – Shipman has written a political history that reads like a thriller, and offers a gripping, day-by-day account of what really happened behind-the-scenes in Downing Street, both Leave campaigns, the Labour Party, Ukip and Britain Stronger in Europe.Shipman gives his readers a ringside seat on how decisions were made, mistakes justified and betrayals perpetrated. Filled with stories, anecdotes and juicy leaks the book does not seek to address the rights and wrongs of Brexit but to explore how and why David Cameron chose to take the biggest political gamble of his life and explain why he lost.This is a story of calculation, attempted coups, individuals torn between principles and loyalty. All the events are here – from David Cameron’s pledge to hold a referendum, through to the campaign itself, his resignation as prime minister, the betrayals and rivalries that occurred during the race to find his successor to the arrival of Theresa May in Downing Street as Britain’s second female prime minister.All Out War is a book about leaders and their closest aides, the decisions they make and how and why they make them, as well as how they feel when they turn out to be wrong. It is about men who make decisions that are intellectually consistent and – by their own measure – morally sound that are simultaneously disastrous for themselves and those closest to them. It is about how doing what you know has worked before doesn’t always work again. Most of all it is about asking the question: how far are you prepared to go to win?
Maps best viewed on a tablet.A magisterial history of the greatest and most terrible event in history, from one of the finest historians of the Second World War. A book which shows the impact of war upon hundreds of millions of people around the world – soldiers, sailors and airmen; housewives, farm workers and children.‘Unquestionably the best single-volume history of the war ever written’ SUNDAY TIMES.All Hell Let Loose reflects Max Hastings’s thirty-five years of research on World War II, and describes not just the course of events, but an epic tale of human experience, from campaign to campaign, continent to continent.This magisterial book ranges across a vast canvas, from the Russian front, where more than 90% of all German soldiers who perished met their fate, to the agony of Poland amid the September 1939 Nazi invasion, and the 1943 Bengal famine, in which at least a million people died under British rule – and British neglect. Some of Hastings’s insights and judgements will surprise students of the conflict, while there are vivid descriptions of the tragedies and triumphs of a host of ordinary people, in uniform and out of it.This is ‘everyman’s story’, an attempt to answer the question: ‘What was the Second World War like?’, and also an overview of the big picture. Max Hastings employs the technique which has made many of his previous books best-sellers, combining top-down analysis and bottom-up testimony to explore the meaning of this vast conflict both for its participants and for posterity.
Four classic tales of adventure at sea, from the master of action and suspense, available for the first time in this e-bundle.Discover why Alistair MacLean was the most popular thriller writer of his generation in these four classic stories of the sea, from the treacherous frozen seas of the north Atlantic, to the warmer but no less deadly waters of the Caribbean and Mediterranean.San Andreas – For a British hospital ship sailing deadly U-boat patrolled Norwegian waters, a nightmare of violence and betrayal has begun, a nerve-shredding game of sabotage in which an unknown traitor among the crew holds all the cards and who is determined to drive the San Andreas into the enemy’s hands.The Golden Rendezvous – For Johnny Carter, Chief Officer on the SS Campari, the luxury cruise begins badly before getting much worse. Mounting tension on the ship explodes into violence as modern-day pirates move in for the kill. But this is no mere hijacking. Their target is a fortune in gold bullion; and their weapon is a nuclear time-bomb…Seawitch – The massive oil-rig is the hub of a great empire and the pride of its ruthless billionaire owner, Lord Worth. Worth cares about only two things: Seawitch and his two daughters. One man knows this: John Cronkite, troubleshooter for the world’s top oilmen and Worth’s former victim. Cronkite wants revenge and during one terrifying week Worth’s world will explode.Santorini – In the Aegean Sea a luxury yacht is on fire; minutes later a four-engine jet crashes into the sea. Is there a connection, and is it an accident that a NATO ship is the only witness? Only Commander Talbot can provide the answers as he uncovers a deadly plot involving terrorism and drugs which leads him right to the heart of the Pentagon.
Four classic tales of adventure in the frozen north, from the master of action and suspense, available for the first time in this e-bundle.Discover why Alistair MacLean was the most popular thriller writer of his generation in these four classic stories of the frozen north – a deadly military submarine mission in the Arctic Ocean, a murder mystery in the darkness of the Polar night,a terrorist-induced plane crash in Iceland, and high-stakes sabotage in the pipelines of the Alaskan oil fields…Night Without End – An airliner crashes in the polar ice-cap 400 miles north of the Arctic Circle. The ten survivors seek refuge at a remote scientific research station In temperatures 40 degrees below freezing. But which of them killed the pilot before the crash, and why?Ice Station Zebra – The atomic submarine Dolphin has impossible orders: locate and rescue the men of weather-station Zebra, gutted by fire and drifting in the ice floes north of the Arctic Circle. But the orders do not say that the fire was sabotage, and that one of the survivors is a killer…Bear Island – A film crew sails north to a barren Arctic island – with a killer on board. As passengers and crew start dying, a wartime graveyard of ships and men explodes in violence once more…Athabasca – Two of the most important oil fields in the world have been sabotaged: one in Canada, the other in Alaska. As targets fall, a deadly and efficient enemy is intent on causing the utmost destruction.
Four thrillers featuring FBI Agent Ren Bryce, from bestselling author, Alex Barclay. Perfect for fans of Karin Slaughter and Patricia Cornwell.BLOOD RUNS COLD:When an FBI agent is found dead on the white slopes of Quandary Peak in Colorado, Ren Bryce is brought in to lead the investigation. Fighting personal demons, pressure from Washington and dwindling leads, the case stalls and her career falters.But as summer comes, Quandary Peak has disturbing new secrets to give up. And as one agent fights failure and hopelessness, another has left behind a trail that leads to a man with a dark past and even darker intentions.TIME OF DEATH:FBI agent Ren Bryce’s hunt for some of the country’s most dangerous killers is about to turn into a nightmare. There’s unfinished business between Ren and those she is pursuing, and soon she’s forced to confront both personal and professional traumas.Then someone close to Ren is murdered and secrets from her past look set to be revealed, throwing her into a world of fear, paranoia and danger.Time is running out and Ren must catch a killer before he catches her…BLOOD LOSS:When an eleven-year-old girl and her teenage babysitter vanish without a trace from their hotel room, FBI agent Ren Bryce is drafted in to lead the investigation.Faced with conflicting evidence and inconsistent witnesses, Ren works obsessively to unravel the dark family secrets at the heart of the case, before it’s too late.But Ren’s behaviour becomes increasingly reckless. Putting her own safety at risk, she enters a world where innocent lives are ruined for profit – and kidnap, rape and murder are all part of the deal.
This ebook omnibus edition brings together Charles Cumming’s two classic Alex Milius novels, also offering readers a sample of his following novel The Trinity Six.A SPY BY NATUREAlec Milius is young, smart, ambitious and comfortable with deceit. So when a chance encounter leads him to MI6, Alec thinks he’s landed the perfect job for his talents. But working alone, relying on instinct, he’s soon spinning a web of deception that has him caught between his new masters and powerful opponents. For in his new line of work the difference between the truth and a lie can be the difference between life and death. And Alec is having trouble telling them apart …THE SPANISH GAMEAlec Milius quit the spying game six years ago – or so he thought.Living in exile in Madrid, he is lured back into a brutal world of lies and deception by the mysterious disappearance of a prominent politician. Forced to work alone, without the support of his former masters in London, Alec comes face to face with the nightmare of modern terror. And this time there's no-one to call for help…
The superb novelist of men at war moves into the twentieth century and World War Two, telling the story of the eleven days in the sands of North Africa that would change history foreverThere are some battles that change the course of history: Alamein is one of those.In October 1942, Britain and its allies were in real difficulties: Germany and its Axis partners seemed to be triumphant everywhere – in Europe, in Russia, in the Atlantic and were now poised to take the Suez Canal. It was in North Africa that the stand was made, that the tide of World War Two began to turn.It was a battle of strong characters: the famous battle commander Rommel and the relatively untested new British commander, Montgomery, leading men who fought through an extraordinary eleven day battle, in an unforgiving terrain, amid the swirling sandstorms and the desert winds.Iain Gale, author of the outstanding historical novel Four Days in June on the battle of Waterloo, tells the dramatic story through seven characters, almost all based on real people. Drawn from both sides of the conflict, they include a major from a Scottish brigade, the young lieutenant in the thick of the tank battle, the Australian sergeant with the infantry, the tank commander of the Panzer Division and the charismatic Italian commander of a parachute battalion. Through them and others we see the flow of battle, the strategies, the individual actions and skirmishes, the fear, the determination, the extraordinary courage on both sides.