Alex Wyndham

When Pierrot becomes an orphan, he must leave his home in Paris for a new life with his Aunt Beatrix, a servant in a wealthy household at the top of the German mountains. But this is no ordinary time, for it is 1935 and the Second World War is fast approaching; and this is no ordinary house, for this is the Berghof, the home of Adolf Hitler. Quickly, Pierrot is taken under Hitler's wing, and is thrown into an increasingly dangerous new world: a world of terror, secrets and betrayal, from which he may never be able to escape.

In Kilo, Toby Muse takes us deeper into the mechanism of the drug trade than ever before, following a kilo of cocaine as it travels from its origins to the street. On the ground in the drug war for over a decade, earning the trust of those involved on all sides, Toby Muse takes us with him through the endless blood-soaked horror and economic logic at every level of the journey of the world's most alluring and dangerous drug. We come to meet and ultimately understand the tainted personal psychology and motivations of each player in this dark El Dorado. But there are no winners here. Anyone who tries to hold the power of the 'white goddess' cocaine is ultimately undone, violently stripped of their humanity, their souls and their lives in this endless, pointless dance of death.

King Edward III’s life is one of the most extraordinary in all English history. He ordered his uncle to be beheaded, he usurped his father’s throne, and started a war which lasted for more than a hundred years. Dr Ian Mortimer unveils that behind the strong warrior king was a compassionate, conscientious and often merciful man - resolute yet devoted to his wife, friends and family, and the father of both the English nation and the English people.

It began with an armchair. It began with the surprise discovery of a stash of personal documents covered in swastikas sewn into its cushion. The SS Officer's Armchair is the story of what happened next, as Daniel Lee follows the trail of cold calls, documents, coincidences and family secrets, to uncover the life of one Dr Robert Griesinger from Stuttgart. Who was he? What had his life been - and how had it ended? Lee reveals the strange life of a man whose ambition propelled him to become part of the Nazi machinery of terror. He discovers his unexpected ancestral roots, untold stories of SS life and family fragmentation. As Lee delves deeper, Griesinger's responsibility as an active participant in Nazi crimes becomes clearer. 

Dr Robert Griesinger's name is not infamous. But to understand the inner workings of the Third Reich, we need to know not just its leaders, but the ordinary Nazis who made up its ranks. Revealing how Griesinger's choices reverberate into present-day Germany, and among descendants of perpetrators, Lee raises potent questions about blame, manipulation and responsibility. A historical detective story and a gripping account of one historian's hunt for answers, The SS Officer's Armchair is at once a unique addition to our understanding of Nazi Germany and a chilling reminder of how such regimes are made not by monsters, but by ordinary people.