David Rintoul

Alex Prévost may be no ordinary victim, but her time is running out. Commandant Camille Verhoeven and his detectives have nothing to go on: all they know is that a girl was snatched off the streets of Paris and bundled into a white van. And before long, saving her life will be the least of his worries. X rated, contains offensive language and graphic violence.

13 years ago surgeon Edward Hammond performed a life saving operation on a Serbian gangster, Dragan Gazi. Gazi is now standing trial for war crimes in the international court in The Hague. Now Gazi's family want more from Edward - in exchange for keeping his secret.

When things start to go badly wrong for James Greer in London, Brodmaw Bay seems to be calling him and his family. There's a perfect house, excellent schools - and welcoming neighbours who assure the Greers that they'd be delighted to have some new blood in the Bay. But perhaps the village isn't so much welcoming them as luring them.

When several valuable antiquarian books go missing from a prestigious library in the heart of Venice, Commissario Brunetti is immediately called to the scene. The staff suspect an American researcher has stolen them, but for Brunetti something doesn't quite add up.

Taking on the case, the Commissario begins to seek information about some of the library's regulars, such as the ex-priest Franchini, a passionate reader of ancient Christian literature, and Contessa Morosini-Albani, the library's chief donor, and comes to the conclusion that the thief could not have acted alone.

However, when Franchini is found murdered in his home, the case takes a more sinister turn and soon Brunetti finds himself submerged in the dark secrets of the black market of antiquarian books.

Paris, 1939: Nazi soldiers are marching along the Champs Elysees. A young writer, recently arrived from Ireland, smokes one last cigarette with his lover before the city they know is torn apart. Soon he will put his own life and the lives of his loved ones in mortal danger by joining the Resistance....

The Jackal is an anonymous Englishman, hired by Colonel Marc Rodin, to assassinate General de Gaulle in 1963.

There was a time when Cicero held Caesar’s life in the palm of his hand. But now Caesar is the dominant figure and Cicero’s life is in ruins. His comeback requires wit, skill and courage – and for a brief and glorious period, the legendary orator is once more the supreme senator in Rome. But politics is never static and no statesman, however cunning, can safeguard against the ambition and corruption of others. Book 3 of series.

A discovery is made in the remote African republic of Zangaro which could change the course of a nation's history forever. Sir James Manson will stop at nothing to protect this find; he hires an army of mercenaries and sets out to topple the government and replace its dictator with a puppet president. But news of the discovery has reached Russia - and suddenly Manson finds he no longer makes the rules in this power game. A game in which win or lose means life or death.

During the interrogation of an entitled, arrogant man suspected of giving drugs to a young girl who then died, Commissario Guido Brunetti acts rashly, doing something he will quickly come to regret.

Granted leave from the Questura, Brunetti is shipped off by his wife, Paola, to a villa owned by a wealthy relative on Sant'Erasmo, one of the largest islands in the Venetian laguna.

The recuperative stay goes according to plan and Brunetti is finally able to relax, until Davide Casati, the caretaker of the house, goes missing following a sudden storm. Nobody can find him - not his daughter, not his friends, and not the woman he'd been secretly visiting. Now, Brunetti feels compelled to investigate, to set aside his holiday and discover what happened to the man who had recently become his friend.

In the first novel in the Commissario Brunetti series, readers were introduced to one of Italy's finest living sopranos, Flavia Petrelli - then a suspect in the poisoning of a renowned German conductor. Now, many years after Brunetti cleared her name, Flavia has returned to sing the lead in Tosca.

As an opera superstar, Flavia is well acquainted with attention from adoring fans. But when one anonymous admirer inundates her with bouquets of yellow roses, it becomes clear that this fan has become a potentially dangerous stalker.

Distraught, Flavia turns to an old friend for help. Familiar with Flavia's melodramatic temperament, Commissario Brunetti is at first unperturbed by her story, but when another young opera singer is attacked he begins to think Flavia's fears may be justified.

Harry Caldecote is the most charming man you'll ever meet, a convivial academic who devotes his life to others. He is on call when his alcoholic niece falls into strange hands, when his brother threatens to emulate Wordsworth, when his son's lesbian lodger is beaten up by her girlfriend. He endures misplaced seductions, swindles and aggressive dogs just to keep the peace at the King's pub in Shepherd's Hill.

But when the Adams' Institute of Cultural and Commercial History in America offers him the opportunity to do 'whatever he wanted to do' in a picturesque lakeside town, he faces a choice between freedom or responsibility - and whether to take charge of his own life.

The destruction of a Russian hideout at SHAPE headquarters near Paris; the planned assassination of a Cuban thug in America; the tracking of a heroin ring from Rome to Venice and beyond. For Bond it is just routine. For anyone else - certain death!

Most weapons do what you tell them. Most weapons you can control. But what if the most dangerous weapon in the world is a 17-year-old boy with a brilliant mind, who can run rings around the most sophisticated security services across the globe, who can manipulate that weaponry and turn it against the superpowers themselves? Whatever happens he must not fall into the wrong hands. Because what follows after that is unthinkable…

When making routine enquiries into a possible bribery case that could embarrass the mayor, Commissario Brunetti receives a call from his wife, Paola, who is evidently very upset.

The middle-aged deaf mute with the mental age of a child who helped out at the Brunetti's dry cleaners has been found dead - an 'accidental' overdose of his mother's sleeping pills.

It is a surprise to Brunetti just how little was known about this man-child - there are no official records to show he even existed. The man's mother is angry and contradictory when questioned about his death, and Brunetti senses that there much more to the story than she is willing to tell.

With the help of Inspector Vianello and the ever-resourceful Signorina Elettra, perhaps Brunetti can get to the truth and find some measure of solace.

HMS 'Terrapin' took a vital part in the Battle of the Atlantic. Now, 25 years later, she is working out her last commission in the Gulf of Thailand. Under the stubborn leadership of her new captain, she and her crew find a long-forgotten unity of purpose.

Former naval officer Philip Vivian sets out with his own motor yacht on a profitable, if legally dubious, adventure proposed to him by an old comrade-in-arms. However he soon finds himself trapped in a treacherous web of violence and crime.

In the early 1930s, an ambitious young Scotsman sets out on the long sea voyage to Penang, eager to take up his post running a maternity hospital in the colony. 70 years later, engineer Edward Mackay, while recuperating on Orkney, begins to unravel the story of a man he thought he knew - his father.

Richard Pearson, jobless advertising executive, is driving out to Brooklands, a motorway town on the M25. A few weeks earlier his father was fatally wounded at a vast shopping mall there, when a deranged mental patient opened fire on a crowd of shoppers.

It only takes a couple of visits to convince Dr Elizabeth Bancroft that Adam Hunter is not just having bad dreams. He's a child possessed. His father leaves the Scottish Highlands to beg help from a mysterious woman, leaving his son in the care of Elizabeth - who is about to discover there are equally dark secrets on their own doorstep.

Led by charismatic doctor David Markham, a group of individuals form a violent protest movement to tear down the consumer society and replace it with a more meaningful existence. As middle England comes under attack, a sense of panic grips the capital.

Donald MacDonald of Ben Nevis rules the roost at Glenbogle Castle. When a hapless bunch of Sassenach hikers invades the glens, camping on Ben Nevis's beloved land, they are in for a shock as the MacDonald clan prepare to do battle.

September 1938, Hitler is determined to start a war, Chamberlain is desperate to preserve the peace. Hugh Legat, Chamberlain’s private secretary and Paul Hartmann, a German diplomat were great friends at Oxford. They last saw one another in Munich six years earlier. Now, as the future of Europe hangs in the balance, their paths are destined to cross again.

Paris, January 1895. Georges Picquart is put in command of shadowy intelligence unit, the Statistical Section. But gradually Picquart comes to believe there is something rotten at the heart of the section. When he discovers another German spy operating on French soil, he finds his superiors are oddly reluctant to pursue it...

London, 1941.A group of British citizens is gathering secret information to aid Hitler’s war machine. Jack Hoste has become entangled in this treachery, but he also has a particular mission: to locate the most dangerous Nazi agent in the country. Hoste soon receives a promising lead. Amy Strallen was once close to this elusive figure, and when Hoste pays a visit to Amy’s office, everything changes in a heartbeat.

The Pedant's ambition is simple. He wants to cook tasty, nutritious food; he wants not to poison his friends; and he wants to expand, slowly and with pleasure, his culinary repertoire. A stern critic of himself and others, he knows he is never going to invent his own recipes (although he might, in a burst of enthusiasm, increase the quantity of a favourite ingredient). Rather, he is a recipe-bound follower of the instructions of others.

It is in his interrogations of these recipes, and of those who create them, that the Pedant's true pedantry emerges. How big, exactly, is a 'lump'? Is a 'slug' larger than a 'gout'? When does a 'drizzle' become a downpour? And what is the difference between slicing and chopping?This book is a witty and practical account of Julian Barnes' search for gastronomic precision. It is a quest that leaves him seduced by Jane Grigson, infuriated by Nigel Slater, and reassured by Mrs Beeton's Victorian virtues. The Pedant in the Kitchen is perfect comfort for anyone who has ever been defeated by a cookbook and is something that none of Julian Barnes' legion of admirers will want to miss.

The Caleighs move in to Crickley Hall, a grim and somewhat foreboding place in North Devon, searching for respite, and perhaps to come to terms with what’s happened to them as a family. But this house is the last place they should have come to, for the terror that unfolds is beyond belief. Soon they will discover the secret horror of Crickley Hall . . .

Hong Kong in 1941, and the war in Europe seems remote. Hopwever Lieutenant-Commander Brooke of HMS Serpent recognises that an attack by Japan is inevitable. When it comes, Brooke and his company refuse to accept defeat.

Thomas Cromwell is one of the most famous - or notorious - figures in English history. Born in obscurity in Putney, he became a fixer for Cardinal Wolsey in the 1520s. After Wolsey's fall, Henry VIII promoted him to a series of ever greater offices, and by the end of the 1530s he was effectively running the country for the King. That decade was one of the most momentous in English history: it saw a religious break with the Pope, unprecedented use of parliament, the dissolution of all monasteries. Cromwell was central to all this, but establishing his role with precision, at a distance of nearly five centuries and after the destruction of many of his papers at his own fall, has been notoriously difficult.

Diarmaid MacCulloch's biography is much the most complete and persuasive life ever written of this elusive figure, a masterclass in historical detective work, making connections not previously seen. It overturns many received interpretations, for example that Cromwell was a cynical, 'secular' politician without deep-felt religious commitment, or that he and Anne Boleyn were allies because of their common religious sympathies - in fact he destroyed her. It introduces the many different personalities of these foundational years, all conscious of the 'terrifyingly unpredictable' Henry VIII. MacCulloch allows readers to feel that they are immersed in all this, that it is going on around them. For a time, the self-made 'ruffian' (as he described himself) - ruthless, adept in the exercise of power, quietly determined in religious revolution - was master of events. MacCulloch's biography for the first time reveals his true place in the making of modern England and Ireland, for good and ill.

It is 1943. For Britain and the Allies, there can be no retreat. At last the war will be taken into enemy territory, and spearheading the advance is the Royal Navy's Special Force in North Africa.

Alistair Moffat travels to – and through the history of – the fated island of Lindisfarne. Walking from his home in the Borders, through the historical landscape of Scotland and northern England, he takes us on a pilgrimage in the footsteps of saints and scholars, before arriving for a secular retreat on the Holy Isle.

The Second World War is raging and John Devane is sent by the British government as commander of a small flotilla of motor torpedo boats to assist the Russians in the Black Sea. Against the background of the Eastern Front Devane learns that war can still be a conflict between two individuals.

Victory is close. Vengeance is closer. Rudi Graf used to dream of sending a rocket to the moon. Instead, he has helped to create the world's most sophisticated weapon: the V2 ballistic missile, capable of delivering a one-ton warhead at three times the speed of sound. In a desperate gamble to avoid defeat in the winter of 1944, Hitler orders ten thousand to be built. Graf is tasked with firing these lethal 'vengeance weapons' at London.

Kay Caton-Walsh is an officer in the Women's Auxiliary Air Force who joins a unit of WAAFs on a mission to newly liberated Belgium. Armed with little more than a slide rule and a few equations, Kay and her colleagues will attempt to locate and destroy the launch sites. As the death toll soars, Graf and Kay fight their grim, invisible war - until one final explosion of violence causes their destinies to collide...

In 1940, after the Nazi occupation of Poland, Witold Pilecki accepted a mission to uncover the fate of thousands of people being interred at a new concentration camp. The name of the detention centre - Auschwitz. This account of his amazing journey, draws on exclusive family papers and declassified files as well as unpublished accounts from the camp's fighters to show how he saved hundreds of thousands of lives.

Brunetti is investigating a cold case by request of the grand Contessa Lando-Continui, a friend of Brunetti's mother-in-law. Fifteen years ago the Contessa's teenage granddaughter, Manuela, was found drowning in a canal. She was rescued from the canal at the last moment, but in many ways it was too late; she suffered severe brain damage and her life was never the same again.

The Contessa, unconvinced that this was an accident, implores Brunetti to find the culprit she believes was responsible for ruining Manuela's life. Out of a mixture of curiosity, pity and a willingness to fulfil the wishes of a loving grandmother, Brunetti reopens the case. But once he starts to investigate, Brunetti finds a murky past and a dark story at its heart.

Edward Waverley, a naïve, sensitive young man, is posted to Scotland with his regiment, and becomes caught between the clans of the Jacobite Rising and the forces of the Hanoverian regime. He must decide whether he will follow the civilization he has always known, or be drawn into an older world of honour and loyalty - and must also choose between the quiet, constant Rose, and the passionate, principled Flora.

Just months after his liberation from Auschwitz renowned psychiatrist Viktor E. Frankl delivered a series of talks revealing the foundations of his life-affirming philosophy. The psychologist, who would soon become world famous, explained his central thoughts on meaning, resilience and his conviction that every crisis contains opportunity. Published here for the very first time in English, Frankl's words resonate as strongly today as they did in 1946. Despite the unspeakable horrors in the camp, Frankl learnt from his fellow inmates that it is always possible to say 'yes to life' - a profound and timeless lesson for us all.