Adam Sims

The music itself was an intoxication of beats, bass, and voice. It emerged amid the social tensions of the late 1980s, and as part of hip-hop's rise to global dominance. It carried the innovations of Jamaican soundsystem culture, the sweet refuge of Lovers Rock, the bliss of club jazz dancefloors and post-rave chill-out rooms. It went mainstream with Massive Attack, Portishead, Tricky, DJ Shadow, Kruder & Dorfmeister, and Björk; and with record labels like Ninja Tune and Mo' Wax.

This short book is a guide to 'trip-hop' in its context of the weird 1990s: nostalgia and consumerism; pre-millenium angst and lo-fi technology; casual exoticism amid accelerating globalization and gentrification.

Sports are about challenging our physical limits. But the greatest limit of all remains undefeated: age. We're taught to believe that ageing thwarts effort and grace, talent and grit, outstanding teamwork and individual brilliance.

But a new breed of top professionals - the likes of Roger Federer, Jo Pavey and Tom Brady - are overturning long-held assumptions about the duration of primetime in a sporting career. It's not that aging causes a decline in fitness; rather, a decline in fitness causes aging.

Full of cutting-edge science, technology and practical tips, Play On empowers you to reverse the ageing process, and extend your peak years.

It's the height of summer, and the wealthy Finney family have gathered at the Manoir Bellechasse to pay tribute to their late father. But as the temperature rises, old secrets and bitter rivalries begin to surface. When the heat wave boils over into a mighty storm, a dead body is left in its wake.

Chief Inspector Gamache, a guest at the Bellechasse, finds himself with a building full of suspects. With the hotel locked down, the murderer is trapped. But a cornered predator is always the most dangerous of all...

Several weeks ago, Chief Inspector Armand Gamache and his team uncovered and stopped a domestic terrorist attack in Montréal, arresting the person behind it. A man they called the Black Wolf.

But their relief is short-lived. In a sickening turn of events, Gamache has realized that plot, as horrific as it was, was just the beginning. Perhaps even a deliberate misdirection. One he fell into. Something deeper and darker, more damaging, is planned. Did he in fact arrest the Black Wolf, or are they still out there?

Still recovering from wounds received in stopping the first attack, Armand is confined to the village of Three Pines, leading a covert investigation from there. He must be careful not to let the Black Wolf know he has recognized his mistake…

Book 20 in the Chief Inspector Gamache series.

The discovery of a dead body in the woods on Thanksgiving Weekend brings Chief Inspector Armand Gamache and his colleagues from the Surete du Quebec to a small village in the Eastern Townships. Gamache cannot understand why anyone would want to deliberately kill well-loved artist Jane Neal, especially any of the residents of Three Pines - a place so free from crime it doesn't even have its own police force.

But Gamache knows that evil is lurking somewhere behind the white picket fences and that, if he watches closely enough, Three Pines will start to give up its dark secrets...

Winter in Three Pines, and the sleepy village is carpeted in snow. It's a time of peace and goodwill - until a scream pierces the biting air. A spectator at the annual Boxing Day curling match has been fatally electrocuted. Despite the large crowd, there are no witnesses and - apparently - no clues.

Chief Inspector Armand Gamache discovers a history of secrets and enemies in the dead woman's past. But he has enemies of his own, and as he is frozen out of decision-making in the police force, he has to decide who he can trust...

It's Easter, and on a glorious Spring day in peaceful Three Pines, someone waits for night to fall. They plan to raise the dead...

When Chief Inspector Gamache arrives the next morning, he faces an unusual crime scene. A séance in an old abandoned house has gone horrifically wrong and someone has been seemingly frightened to death.

In idyllic Three Pines, terrible secrets lie buried, and even Gamache has something to hide. One of his own team is about to betray him. But how far will they go to ensure Gamache's downfall?

It's the height of summer, and the Finney family have gathered at the Manoir Bellechasse to pay tribute to their late father. As the temperature rises, old secrets and bitter rivalries boil over into a mighty storm, with a dead body left in its wake. Chief Inspector Gamache finds himself with a building full of suspects...

Chief Inspector Gamache arrives in picturesque Three Pines, where a man has been found bludgeoned to death, and there is no sign of a weapon, a motive or even the dead man's name. As Gamache starts to investigate, he uncovers a trail of mysterious codes that begin to shed light on the victim's identity - and points to a terrifying killer...

As Quebec shivers in the grip of winter, Chief Inspector Armand Gamache plunges into the strangest case of his celebrated career. A man has been brutally murdered in one of the city's oldest buildings - a library where the English citizens of Quebec safeguard their history. And the death opens a door into the past, exposing a mystery that has lain dormant for centuries...a mystery Gamache must solve if he's to catch a present-day killer.

Chief Inspector Gamache is called on to investigate the violent death of a nasty art critic whose words have crushed the careers of many inspiring artists. But as he peers into the dark corners of the victim's past, he exposes a secret that rots at the very heart of their community.

Hidden deep in the wilderness are the cloisters of two dozen monks - men of prayer and music, famous the world over for their glorious voices. But a brutal death throws the monastery doors open to the world. And through them walks the only man who can shine light upon the dark deeds within: Chief Inspector Armand Gamache.

As winter grips Quebec, Chief Inspector Armand Gamache receives a message about a mysterious case in Three Pines. A woman who was once one of the most famous people in the world has vanished. As he begins to shed light on the investigation, he is drawn into a web of murder, lies and corruption at the heart of the city. Facing his most challenging, and personal, case to date, can Gamache save the reputation of the Sûreté, those he holds dear and himself?

Former Chief Inspector of Homicide, Armand Gamache, has found a peace he'd never imagined possible, away from the front line of the police and in the tranquil village of Three Pines. But when his friend Clara Morrow asks for help, he can't bring himself to refuse her, despite the old wounds it threatens to re-open. Clara's husband, Peter, is missing, having failed to come home on the first anniversary of their separation, as promised. As Gamache journeys further into Quebec, he is drawn deeper into the tortured mind of Peter Morrow, a man so desperate to recapture his fame as an artist that he would sell his soul. As Gamache gets closer to the truth, he uncovers a deadly trail of jealousy and deceit. Can Gamache bring Peter, and himself, home safely? Or in searching for answers, has he placed himself, and those closest to him, in terrible danger . . .

Hardly a day goes by when nine-year-old Laurent Lepage doesn't cry wolf. His boundless sense of adventure and vivid imagination mean he has a tendency to concoct stories so extraordinary and so far-fetched that no one can possibly believe him.

But when Laurent disappears, former Chief Inspector Armand Gamache is faced with the possibility that one of his tall tales might have been true.

So begins a frantic search for the boy and the truth. And what Gamache uncovers deep in the forest leads back to crimes of the past, betrayal and murder, with more sinister consequences than anyone could have possibly imagined...

When a professor of the Surete Academy is found murdered, with a mysterious map of Three Pines in his possession, Chief Inspector Gamache has a tough task ahead of him. But when suspicion turns to Gamache himself, and his possible involvement in the crime, the frantic search for answers takes the investigation to the village of Three Pines, where a series of shattering secrets are poised to be revealed...

One cold November day, a mysterious figure appears on the village green in Three Pines, causing unease, alarm and confusion among everyone who sees it. Chief Superintendent Armand Gamache knows something is seriously wrong, but all he can do is watch and wait, hoping his worst fears are not realised. But when the figure disappears and a dead body is discovered, it falls to Gamache to investigate. In the early days of the murder inquiry, and months later, as the trial for the accused begins, Gamache must face the consequences of his decisions, and his actions, from which there is no going back...

When Armand Gamache receives a letter inviting him to an abandoned farmhouse outside of Three Pines, the former head of police discovers that a complete stranger has named him as an executor of her will. The bequests are so wildly unlikely that he suspects the woman must have been delusional - until a body is found.

But it isn't the only menace Gamache is facing. The investigation into the events that led to his suspension delves deeper, and he takes increasingly desperate measures to rectify previous actions. As he does, Gamache begins to see his own blind spots - and the terrible things hiding there...

The air is unbearably tense as Armand Gamache returns to work since being demoted from its command to head of homicide. Amid blistering personal social media attacks, Gamache sets out on his first assignment. He has been tasked with finding a missing woman, but while he leads the search for Vivienne Godin, his home of Three Pines itself is threatened when the river breaks its banks, and an emergency is declared.

As the waters rise, a body is discovered - and the victim's distraught father contemplates revenge. Gamache is a father himself, and is haunted by a question... what would he do, if his child's killer might walk free?

On their first night in Paris, the Gamaches gather for a family dinner with Armand's godfather, the billionaire Stephen Horowitz. But the evening ends in horror when Stephen is knocked down and critically injured in what Armand is convinced is no accident, but a deliberate attempt on an elderly man's life.

When a strange key is found in Stephen's possession it sends Armand on a desperate search for the truth that will take him from the top of the Tour Eiffel, to the bowels of the Paris Archives.

And as Armand begins to uncover the secrets his godfather has kept hidden for decades, he finds himself ensnared in a web of lies and deceit that threatens to destroy everything - and everyone - he holds dear.

For even the City of Light casts long shadows. And in that darkness devils hide...

When Chief Inspector Armand Gamache is asked to provide crowd control at a statistics lecture given at the Université de l'Estrie in Quebec, he is dubious. Why ask the head of homicide to provide security for what sounds like a minor, even mundane lecture?

But dangerous ideas about who deserves to live in order for society to thrive are rapidly gaining popularity, fuelled by the research of the eminent Professor Abigail Robinson. Yet for every person seduced by her theories there is another who is horrified by them. When a murder is committed days after the lecture, it's clear that within crowds can lie madness.

To uncover the truth, Gamache must put his own feelings about the divisive Professor to one side. But with her ideas gaining ground, the line separating good and evil, right and wrong, is quickly blurring - especially when the case leads unexpectedly close to home...

It's spring and Three Pines is reemerging after the harsh winter. But not everything buried should come alive again. Not everything lying dormant should reemerge. But something has. As the villagers prepare for a special celebration, Armand Gamache and Jean-Guy Beauvoir find themselves increasingly worried. A young man and woman have reappeared in the Sûreté du Québec investigators' lives after many years. The two were young children when their troubled mother was murdered, leaving them damaged, shattered. Now they've arrived in the village of Three Pines. But to what end? Gamache and Beauvoir's memories of that tragic case, the one that first brought them together, come rushing back. Did their mother's murder hurt them beyond repair? Have those terrible wounds, buried for decades, festered and are now about to erupt?

Relentless phone calls interrupt the peace of a warm August morning in the small village of Three Pines in Quebec. Someone has managed to track down Armand Gamache, head of homicide, as he sits with his wife in their back garden. When he finally answers the call, his rage shatters the calm of their quiet Sunday morning.

That's only the first in a sequence of strange events that begin The Grey Wolf. At first they seem small - a missing coat, a note for Gamache reading "this might interest you", a puzzling scrap of paper with a mysterious list - but then a murder. All propel Chief Inspector Gamache and his team toward a terrible realization. Something much more sinister than any one murder or any one case is fast approaching. A threat unlike anything they've seen before.

Seventeen is a hitman, the best in the world, so-called because there were sixteen before him, stretching back through the decades. Every government organization in the world wants his services and every other high-level hitman has placed a target on his back. Because to be the best, you have to beat the best.

When Seventeen is ordered to find and kill his predecessor, the hit goes wrong and hunter turns to hunted. An ultraviolent duel develops between two assassins at the height of their powers, but when they fight themselves to a standstill, the real target of the hit emerges, and they must join forces to defeat their joint enemy - and in the process prevent an unjustified war that could kill hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians.

Agent Seventeen, the most infamous hitman in the world, has quit. But whoever wants to become Assassin Eighteen must track him down and kill him first.

So when a bullet hits the glass inches from his face, he knows who fired it - doesn't he?

But the sniper isn't the hardened killer he was expecting. It's Mireille - a mysterious, silent child, abandoned in the woods with instructions to pull the trigger.

Reuniting with his spiky lover, Kat, Seventeen must protect Mireille, and discover who sent her to kill him, and why.

But the road he must travel is littered with bodies. And the answer, when it comes, will blow apart everything Seventeen thought he knew.

Book 2 in the Assassin Seventeen series.

THEIR MISSION IS MURDER. HIS IS REVENGE. A propulsive new thriller from the bestselling author of BULLET TRAIN.

Suzuki is just an ordinary man until his wife is murdered. When he discovers the criminal gang responsible he leaves behind his life as a maths teacher and joins them, looking for a chance to take his revenge. What he doesn't realise is that he's about to get drawn into a web of unusual professional assassins, each with their own agenda.

The Whale convinces his victims to take their own lives using just his words.
The Cicada is a talkative and deadly knife expert.
The elusive Pusher dispatches his targets in deadly traffic accidents.

Suzuki must take each of them on, in order to try to find justice and keep his innocence in a world of killers.

Book 2 in the Assassins series.

Kabuto is an ordinary guy; stressed with work, hassled by his wife and disrespected by his son. No wonder he visits his doctor so often. Except 'the Doctor' is actually his handler, and Kabuto is a hired assassin. The 'prescriptions' the Doctor hands over are his unlucky targets. Because although Kabuto may seem like a small man at home, he's really good at killing people.

But Kabuto is worn out with the business of murder. He's trying to pay his way out of the Doctor's employment with a few last jobs. But the most lucrative contracts involve taking out other professional assassins and his final assignment puts both him and his family in danger.

Book 3 in the Assassins series.

'911 what's your emergency?'

'My dad's dead. My sister Sofia killed him. She's still in the house. Please send help.'

'My dad's dead. My sister Alexandra killed him. She's still in the house. Please send help.'

One of them is a liar and a killer. But which one?

Ambitious District Attorney Randal Korn lives to watch prisoners executed. Even if they are not guilty.

An innocent man, Andy Dubois, faces the death penalty for the murder of young girl. Korn has already fixed things to make sure he wins a fast conviction.

The one thing Korn didn't count on was Eddie Flynn.

Slick, street smart and cunning, the former con artist turned New York lawyer has only seven days to save an innocent man against a corrupt system and find the real killer. In a week the Judge will read the verdict, but will Eddie be alive to hear it?

Ruby Johnson is a nanny and maid to wealthy families in Manhattan's West 74th Street. 
She knows their routines. Their secrets. One night, on her way home, Ruby witnesses a neighbour's murder.

She knows the victim. She knows the killer. She makes an anonymous call to the police and names the murderer. But Ruby didn't tell the truth... Because there's something wrong with Ruby Johnson.

Eddie Flynn, conman turned trial lawyer, must defend an innocent man accused of this terrible crime. As Ruby's deadly game begins, one thing is certain.

It won't be the last murder this witness is involved in...

Eddie Flynn, con-man turned criminal lawyer, has an impossible choice.

He has damning evidence against a corrupt NYPD detective who stands accused of killing a suspect.

But if he uses this evidence in court, both he and his client - the dead man's widow - will be in mortal danger.

Should he risk their lives to win the case? Or keep quiet and let a murderer go free.

A novella in the Eddie Flynn series.

When wealthy businessman Leonard Howell's daughter is kidnapped, he calls on the only man he trusts to get her back. Eddie Flynn knows what it's like to lose a daughter and vows to bring Caroline home safe. Once a con artist, now a criminal attorney, Flynn is no stranger to the New York underworld. However, as he steps back into his old life, Flynn realizes that he is being played. But who is pulling the strings? And is anyone in this twisted case telling the truth...?

Investigators Lincoln Rhyme and Amelia Sachs are recruited to track down a cargo ship carrying illegal Chinese immigrants, as well as the notorious human smuggler and killer known as the Ghost. But when the capture goes disastrously wrong, Lincoln and Amelia find themselves in a race to stop the Ghost before he can track down and murder the two surviving families who have vanished deep into the world of New York's Chinese community. Over the next forty-eight hours the Ghost ruthlessly hunts for the families while Rhyme struggles desperately to find them first. Meanwhile, Sachs pursues a very different kind of policework - forming a connection with one of the immigrants that may have far reaching consequences for her relationship with her partner and lover, Lincoln Rhyme.

What is silence? In a series of short meditations, novelist and playwright John Biguenet considers silence as a servant of power, as a lie, as a punishment, as the voice of God, as a terrorist's final weapon, as a luxury good, as the reason for torture-in short, as an object we both do and do not recognize. Concluding with the prospects for its future in a world burgeoning with noise, Biguenet asks whether we should desire or fear silence-or if it is even ours to choose.

For as long as people have traveled to distant lands, they have brought home objects to certify the journey. More than mere merchandise, these travel souvenirs take on a personal and cultural meaning that goes beyond the object itself. Drawing on several millennia of examples-from the relic-driven quests of early Christians, to the mass-produced tchotchkes that line the shelves of a Disney gift shop-travel writer Rolf Potts delves into a complicated history that explores issues of authenticity, cultural obligation, market forces, human suffering, and self-presentation. Souvenirs are shown for what they really are: not just objects, but personalized forms of folk storytelling that enable people to make sense of the world and their place in it.'

Plug in and prepare for your A-Level English Literature examination with this comprehensive audio study guide to The Great Gatsby. Includes the entire, unabridged audio narration of The Great Gatsby, as well as in-depth analysis on the text, covering the key areas of: Characters, Themes, Structure and Form, Genre and Historical Context - as well as detailed chapter summaries and key quotations for your exam.

This audio study guide covers the core assessment objectives of the A Level syllabus. This will give students studying these texts a strong foundation from which they can build their understanding, engage with other critical commentary and draw connections to other literary texts. Students will learn how to: articulate informed and creative responses to the text through the exploration of themes and key ideas (AO1), analyse writers' craft to uncover the ways in which writers convey meaning in the text (AO2) and appreciate the influence and significance of the contexts which shaped the writing and reception of the text (AO3).