Sean Barrett

Operation Market Garden, the plan to end the war by capturing the bridges leading to the Lower Rhine and beyond, was a bold concept: the Americans thought it unusually bold for Field Marshal Montgomery. But the cost of failure was horrendous, above all for the Dutch who risked everything to help. German reprisals were cruel and lasted until the end of the war.

Antony Beevor, using many overlooked and new sources from Dutch, British, American, Polish and German archives, has reconstructed the terrible reality of this epic clash. Yet this book, written in Beevor's inimitable and gripping narrative style, is about much more than a single dramatic battle. It looks into the very heart of war.

May, 1940. Britain is at war, European democracies are falling rapidly and the public are unaware of this dangerous new world. Just days after his unlikely succession to Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, faces this horror - and a sceptical King and a party plotting against him. He wonders how he can capture the public mood and does so, magnificently, before leading the country to victory.

It is this fascinating period that Anthony McCarten captures in this deeply researched, gripping day-by-day (and often hour-by-hour) narrative. In doing so he revises the familiar view of Churchill - he made himself into the iconic figure we remember and changed the course of history, but through those turbulent and dangerous weeks he was plagued by doubt, and even explored a peace treaty with Nazi Germany. It's a scarier, and more human story, than has ever been told.

Prague, 1599. Christian Stern, a young doctor, has just arrived in the city. On his first evening, he finds a young woman's body half-buried in the snow.

The dead woman is none other than the emperor's mistress, and there's no shortage of suspects. Stern is employed by the emperor himself to investigate the murder. In the search to find the culprit, Stern finds himself drawn into the shadowy world of the emperor's court - unspoken affairs, letters written in code, and bitter rivalries. But there's no turning back now...

The year is 1327. Franciscans in a wealthy Italian abbey are suspected of heresy, and Brother William of Baskerville arrives to investigate. When his delicate mission is suddenly overshadowed by seven bizarre deaths, Brother William turns detective.

William collects evidence, deciphers secret symbols and coded manuscripts, and digs into the eerie labyrinth of the abbey where extraordinary things are happening under the cover of night. A spectacular popular and critical success, The Name of the Rose is not only a narrative of a murder investigation but an astonishing chronicle of the Middle Ages.

The narrative of Molloy, old and ill, remembering and forgetting, scarcely human, begets a parallel tale of the spinsterish Moran, a private detective sent in search of him, whose own deterioration during the quest joins in with the catalogue of Molloy's woes.  Book 1 of series.

The Unnamable - so named because he knows not who he may be - is from a nameless place. He speaks of previous selves ('all these Murphys, Molloys, and Malones...') as diversions from the need to stop speaking altogether. But, as with the other novels in the Beckett trilogy, the prose is full of marvellous precisions, full of its own reasons for keeping going.  Book 3 of series.

East African Coast, 1670. The Golden Bough, captained by Henry 'Hal' Courtney, is running south from Ethiopia to Zanzibar, when he discovers his mortal enemy,the Buzzard, still lives and is hell-bent on revenge. He must pursue his nemesis through the seedy underbelly of Zanzibar's slave markets and shark-infested waters, imperilling his own life at every turn.

When a family tragedy forces Saffron to move from Kenya to England, she is drawn into the heart of the gathering storm of the Second World War. Gerhard von Meerbach is the privileged younger brother of a vocal supporter of the Nazi Party. As the war looms, Saffron and Gerhard’s worlds will collide – but will there be more to unite them than tear them apart?

A dazzling young Russian virtuoso performs a sell-out recital on Paganini's violin in the cathedral in Cremona. Then one of the audience, a shady Parisian art dealer, is found dead in his hotel room, a fragment of sheet music belonging to the virtuoso hidden in his wallet. But how did the dead man get hold of it? And why? Gianni and Antonio investigate the murder and find themselves at the centre of a tantalising story of love, deception and greed. Following a trail that leads back to Paganini, his lover Elisa Bonaparte (Napoleon's sister), Catherine the Great of Russia and a long-lost priceless treasure, the two friends must unravel another mystery that has gone unanswered for over a century, one that may hold the answer to the modern-day murder. Sequel to The Rainaldi Quartet. Book two in the series

After five years of conflict, London's exhausted inhabitants are living in a world of dereliction. War-weary DI Ted Stratton is no exception. But called on to investigate when a doctor is found dead in Fitzrovia's Middlesex Hospital, Stratton soon realizes that someone involved is not who they appear to be.

London in the early 1950s; John Davies confesses to strangling his wife and baby daughter. It proves to be a straightforward case for DI Ted Stratton of West End Central, and Davies is convicted and hanged. But after a series of gruesome discoveries, Stratton begins to suspect there has been a terrible miscarriage of justice...

London, November, 1956. DI Ted Stratton is investigating the murder of Jeremy Lloyd, a young man with a taste for esoteric religion. Stratton's enquiries lead him to Suffolk, where the mysterious Mr Roth has founded a Foundation for Spiritual Understanding.

1958: Notting Hill is DI Stratton's new manor and a powder keg of racial tension. A race riot breaks out - the worst Britain has ever seen. Stratton must tread a path through the violence and prejudice to find a killer before Notting Hill explodes.

In a huge old house, full of precious paintings, Thomas Porteous is dying. As his much younger wife Di mourns, she knows that soon, despite her being his sole inheritor, Thomas's relatives will descend on the collection. After all, she met Thomas when she came to his house to rob him. With the help of an unlikely collection of loners and eccentrics, she sets a trap to hoist the family members on their own greed.

After her husband's death, young widow and art collector Diana Porteous plans to rediscover her talents as a thief, as well as art expert, to recover stolen paintings. She begins with Steven, her neighbour's son, who is amassing works of art in London, including work stolen from his mother. But if Di is interested in his illicit treasures, he is equally fascinated by hers - and in the secrets still held in her house by the sea...

Young widow Diana Porteous has inherited a vast collection of paintings, but she feels without purpose. Then her beloved stepgrandson comes up with the idea for an exhibition of portraits with the title 'A Question of Guilt'. It starts as a joke, but soon they are preparing the huge wine cellar of the old schoolhouse by the sea, in spite of those with misgivings as to its suitability.

Reykjavìk, August 1941. When a travelling salesman is found murdered in a basement flat, killed by a bullet from a Colt .45, the police initially suspect a member of the Allied occupation force.

The British are in the process of handing over to the Americans and the streets are crawling with servicemen whose relations with the local women are a major cause for concern.

Flóvent, Reykjavìk's sole detective, is joined by the young military policeman Thorson. Their investigation focuses on a family of German residents, the retired doctor Rudolf Lunden and his estranged son Felix, who is on the run, suspected of being a spy.

As evidence emerges of dubious experiments carried out on Icelandic schoolboys in the 1930s, Thorson becomes increasingly suspicious of the role played by the murdered man's former girlfriend, Vera, and her British soldier lover.

Once a successful surgeon, Frederick Welin now lives in self-imposed exile on an island in the Swedish archipelago. Nearly twelve years have passed since he was disgraced for attempting to cover up a tragic mishap on the operating table. Now his past is about to catch up with him.

Retired doctor Fredrik Welin lives alone on an island in the Swedish archipelago. But his quiet, solitary life is turned upside down when his house catches fire. The house that has been in his family for generations and all his worldly belongings are gone. He cannot think who would do such a thing, or why. When another house goes up in flames, the community realizes they have an arsonist in their midst...

Detective Harry Hole arrives in a steaming hot Bangkok. The Norwegian ambassador has been found dead in a seedy motel room, and Harry has been sent to investigate. Harry lays his hands on some CCTV footage that will help him unravel what happened that night, but the man who gave him the tape goes missing. Soon Harry realises that failing to solve a murder case is by no means the only danger in Bangkok.

A report of a rare and unusual gun – a type favoured by assassins – being smuggled into the country sparks Detective Harry Hole's interest. Then a former WW2 Nazi sympathizer is found with his throat cut. Next, someone close to Harry is murdered. Why had she been trying to reach Harry on the night she was killed? As Harry's investigation unfolds, the link between the cases remains a mystery, but one thing is certain: the killer must be stopped.

A man is caught on CCTV, shooting dead a cashier at a bank. Detective Harry Hole begins his investigation, but after dinner with an old flame he wakes up with no memory of the past 12 hours. Then the girl is found dead in mysterious circumstances and he begins to receive threatening emails: is someone trying to frame him for her death? As Harry fights to clear his name, the bank robberies continue with unparalleled savagery...

In the depths of winter, a killer stalks the streets of Oslo. Two young women are found dead with inexplicable puncture wounds. Inspector Harry Hole has no intention of working on the case, but his instinct takes over when an MP is found brutally murdered. The victims appear unconnected, but it's not long before Harry makes a discovery: the women all spent the night in an isolated mountain hostel. And someone is picking off the guests one by one. Contains content that may be upsetting.

The murder has been solved, but has justice been done? Harry Hole is back in Oslo. He's been away for some time, but his ghosts have a way of catching up with him. The case that brings him back is already closed. There is no room for doubt: the young junkie was shot dead by a fellow addict. The police don't want him back.

A woman is found murdered after an internet date. The police realise that they are dealing with a particularly vicious killer, and there’s only one man who can help. But Harry Hole is reluctant to return to the place that almost took everything from him. Until he starts to suspect a connection between this killing and his one failed case…

Harry is in a bad place: Rakel has left him, he's working cold cases and notorious murderer Svein Finne is back on the streets.

Harry is responsible for the many years Finne spent in prison but now he's free and ready to pick up where he left off.

When Harry wakes up with blood on his hands, and no memory of what he did the night before, he knows everything is only going to get worse...

Book 12 in the Harry Hole series.

When a newborn baby is found drowned in the shallow waters of the Golden Horn, all-out warfare threatens to erupt between rival criminal gangs. Inspector Kerim Gürsel is assigned to the case and he must tread carefully when DNA tests reveal that the baby's father is Görkan Paşahan, Istanbul's most feared Mafia boss. But the identity of the infant's mother is yet to be discovered...

Meanwhile, Çetin İkmen and Mehmet Süleyman attend the winter festival known as Bocuk Gecesi, held on the darkest night of the year, and witness a magic trick whereby a young man, Emir Kaya, disappears. While İkmen investigates how the illusion took place, Süleyman conducts a tortuous hunt for Emir Kaya that exposes a harrowing tale of depravation, betrayal and corruption where the bloodline of a child is worth killing for and everything has its price...

Book 26 in the Ikmen mysteries.

Retired inspector Çetin Ikmen must confront his demons to reveal the shocking truth behind a young girl's death.

When historian Suzan Tan is asked to examine the contents of a derelict villa on the Bosphorus, she is intrigued to discover a Ouija board among the artefacts.

Forty years ago, a young girl was found with a knife in her heart in this villa. It is said that before her death this very Ouija board spelled out her name. The verdict was suicide - but what if it was a brutal act of murder and her killer was still walking free? Suzan asks Ikmen to solve the case, and despite his reluctance to get involved, he soon finds himself drawn into the mystery.

With the help of his friend Inspector Süleyman, Ikmen delves into Istanbul's dark underbelly to uncover a terrifying tale of secrets, lies and murder.

Book 21 in the Inspector Ikmen series.

Brothers Ugur and Lokman Bulut are locked in a bitter inheritance battle and need a sample of their mother's DNA to contest her will. But when her body is exhumed, her corpse is found to be missing and a fresh body, with its heart removed, has been put in her grave. Assigned to the case, Inspector Mehmet Süleyman quickly realises that the heart has been illegally harvested, and his team has a murder inquiry on its hands.

Meanwhile, retired Inspector Çetin Ikmen is tracking down a missing person: Sevval Kalkan, a once-famous actress, who has joined an underground movement called the Moral Maze, whose mission is to help the destitute living on Istanbul's streets. The unidentified body in the grave cannot be Sevval's, but her shocking reappearance leads Ikmen to fear that she, too, is a victim of organ harvesting....

Joining forces, Süleyman and Ikmen confront Istanbul's darkest underbelly to expose the horrifying truth of a city in crisis.

Book 22 in the Inspector Ikmen series.

In the early hours of the morning, Turkish TV star Erol Gencer is found dead at his home on the outskirts of Istanbul. But he is not alone. Beside him lies a Syrian refugee whose stomach has been split open with a cheese knife. Did Gencer kill his guest before committing suicide, or are they victims of a sinister double murder?

The dead Syrian is soon identified as Wael Al Hussain, whose wife, Samira, is in prison for attempting to kill Gencer a year ago. At the time, no one believed Samira's story that Gencer's wife had planned the attack, but now Samira's sister begs Çetin Ikmen to re-examine her claim.

Meanwhile, Inspector Mehmet Süleyman is on leave with his teenage son, Patrick, who is visiting from Ireland, but when Detective Kerim Gürsel's transsexual ex-lover, Pembe, is also murdered, shortly after confessing that Wael Al Hussain had used her for sexual favours, Süleyman knows he must help Kerim solve this complex case.

Book 23 in the Inspector Ikmen series.

When Ates Bocuk, son of a feared Istanbul gang leader, is arrested for the brutal murder of his Roma lover, feelings of vengeance are ignited among rival Turkish gangs and the Roma community. Forensic evidence is stacked against him, but Ates refuses to speak, and Inspector Suleyman suspects that there is more to the case than meets the eye. Then Cetin Ikmen discovers that Ates is psychotic and believes that everyone in his life is an imposter, which suggests that Ates might in fact be a victim of a far more sinister game...

As violence erupts, Suleyman and his team work tirelessly to expose a shocking tale of corruption, power and betrayal - but not before more blood is shed on these dark and dangerous streets.

Book 25 in the Inspector Ikmen series.

A serial killer is stalking the streets of Istanbul, seemingly targeting gay men. A man is found dead in a hotel room, a single stab wound in his heart. Could he be a victim of the Peeper? X rated, contains offensive language and explicit sex.

When jeweller Fahrettin Muftugolu is found dead in his apartment in the Istanbul district of Vefa, it looks like suicide. Searching the jeweller's home, Inspector Mehmet Suleyman and his team come across a hoard of extraordinary artefacts including solid gold religious relics and a mummified human head. But are they real and, if so, who owns these priceless possessions? As his colleagues begin their investigation, Suleyman is distracted by troubles of his own. His wedding to Gonca Serekoglu is days away, but when Gonca receives her bridal bedcover from a Roma haberdasher and discovers that it is covered in blood, she sees this as a curse on their marriage. Suleyman asks his old friend Cetin Ikmen to help him uncover the truth, but the task is not that simple...Meanwhile, as the stories swirling around Muftugolu become increasingly sinister, the dead man's wife appears, laying claim to his valuables, and Suleyman is drawn into a dark and dangerous world of smuggling and savagery . . .

The first woman had her lungs ripped out. When the same gruesome ritualistic method was used again, it was clear that the same killer was responsible. But there is no precise evidence to link the two cases, except for a tantalising email. In his desperate attempt to solve the case before more victims are discovered, Jan Fabel of the Hamburg murder squad, gradually uncovers layer upon layer of intrigue.

As Jan Fabel, of the Hamburg murder squad, interprets twisted imagery at a crime scene, it becomes clear that a series of new crimes are a grisly reference to folk stories collected by the Brothers Grimm. The hunt is on for a serial killer who is exploring the darkest, most fundamental fears hidden in ancient fairy tales.

It is Holy Week in Seville, and Inspector Javier Falcón is trying to find a serial killer. With each new victim, the killer demonstrates an uncanny ability to delve into the darkest secrets of his prey - and into Falcón’s own family history, and the professional, dispassionate Falcón is forced to confront the unimaginable.