David Hobbs

August 1917. Britain is mired in bloody stalemate on the Western Front and questions are being asked in government about the leadership of the army. Soldier spy Sandy Innes is summoned from his undercover work in Belgium by the new Secret Service to investigate. Officially transferred to Field Marshal Haig's headquarters in France to prepare agents for the next big push, his secret mission is to spy on Haig's intelligence chiefs.

At GHQ, no one is interested in Innes's inside knowledge. Instead, he is attached to an advance assault group dubbed 'The Suicide Club'. His fellow intelligence officers have little faith in the top secret information being fed to Haig by their superior, and as Innes digs deeper he begins to suspect treachery. The stakes could not be higher: the fate of hundreds of thousands of British soldiers.

Rewild is a celebration of nature and the incredible ways it keeps us alive, and an exploration of how we can welcome the wild on a personal and epic scale. River-nurturing wolves, tree-toppling beavers, climate warrior whales and even genetically-engineered woolly mammoths could all help us protect, revive and restore our planet to its full glory. Join Ben Martynoga and Moose Allain for an inspiring look at how we can rewild life so that nature - and humankind - flourishes for a long time to come.

This is an historical and humanitarian story of 'Swansea Jack', an intelligent and lovable retriever dog of the 1930s, whose life was devoted to humanity.

His mischievous adventures as a puppy cause a public nuisance, resulting in a change of ownership. Nevertheless, his good work and brave deeds throughout the rest of his short but full life more than made up for his earlier misdemeanours bringing him and his owner, William James Thomas, fame if not fortune. 

This story relates his feats of bravery in saving people from drowning, fundraising and nationwide travel, bringing glory to his home town of Swansea, South Wales, which in turn bestowed numerous honours upon him. He was also given the highest award merited by a dog - The Canine V. C.

With well over 150 films to his name, Lance Henriksen is a Hollywood icon. He’s best known as the empathetic android Bishop in Aliens and the intuitive criminal profiler Frank Black in the TV series Millennium, but he has also played gunfighters, gangsters, an astronaut, a vampire, a sadistic monk, Charles Bronson, and Abraham Lincoln. He’s mentored Tarzan, Evel Knievel, and the Antichrist, and fought Terminators, Aliens, Predators, Pumpkinhead, Pinhead, Bigfoot, Superman, the Autobots, Mr. T, Jean-Claude Van Damme, and Steven Seagal.

Henriksen is a true artist – a painter, a potter, and a creative collaborator who brings complexity and humanity to all of his work by drawing on real life experiences that are often stranger than fiction. Not Bad For a Human celebrates the actor’s screen persona, film by film, and recounts the chaotic upbringing and early life experiences that shaped him.

CONTENT WARNING: contains explicit language

The British invasion of the Philippines was the first challenge to Spain's control of the archipelago after 191 years of rule. The Royal Navy and British Army joined with the East India Company in Madras to capture Spain's Asian colony. In conjunction with the attack against Spain's key possession in the Americas, Havana, both settlements were successfully seized. However, in the Philippines, whilst the expedition was launched as part of a plan to harass the Spaniards in their possessions, as well as for commercial gain and new territories, the military campaign led by General William Draper and Admiral Samuel Cornish, may have been launched under the guise of an invasion in order to gain prize money.

The author describes the events as they unfolded at the Admiralty in London and at the East India Company in Madras, leading to the invasion and occupation of the capital Manila and the port city of Cavite.

Unless you have experienced war, it is impossible to imagine its grim reality. But The Cauldron does just that - unsparingly, painfully, brilliantly - because it is written by someone who was there.

This is the story of a platoon of British paratroopers dropped sixty miles behind German lines into the bloody maelstrom that Arnhem became in September 1944. With the end of the war nigh, the Allies make one bold bet to end it before Christmas. But it is a bet doomed to failure…

Like never before, this is what it must have been like for the men parachuted into the cauldron. It has the smell, the taste, the fear of war - the terrifying sense of kill or be killed, and the horror of watching your friends die in front of you...

London 1678. Charles II is likely to die without a legitimate heir. His Catholic brother, James, is next in line to the throne. Across the country, fear of a return to Catholicism and its cruel persecution runs rife.

Fuelling the hysteria are rumours of a Catholic plot to assassinate the king. Orchestrated by Titus Oates, its validity seems confirmed when prominent magistrate, Sir Edmund Godfrey is brutally murdered and his body thrown into a ditch.

Nathaniel Thompson, close ally to the king, is certain Oates’ claims are a hoax. He is determined to expose Oates as the traitor he truly is.

But Nat’s convictions put him directly in sight of the conspirators. Those who will stop at nothing to spread fear and unrest.

Can he find allies willing to prove his case without losing his livelihood, his marriage... even his life?

When Commissario Brunetti is summoned to the hospital bedside of a senior paediatrician whose skull has been brutally fractured by intruders to his apartment, he is confronted with more questions than answers. Brunetti begins to uncover a story of infertility, desperation, and an underworld where babies can be bought for cash - linked with a money-making scam between pharmacists and doctors in the city.  Book 16 of series.

In this new mystery Inspector Chard is confronted with another murder in bustling Victorian Pontypridd. On the face of it the case appears unremarkable, even if it isnt obviously solvable, but following new leads takes Chard into unexpected places. A second murder, a sexual predator, industrial espionage and a mining disaster crowd into the investigation, baffling the Inspector and his colleagues and putting his own life at risk as the murderer attempts to avoid capture. Chard navigates a way through the clues and red herrings, and a lengthening list of suspects, towards the poisoner. Atmospheric, authentic, Chard and the reader are left guessing until the final page.

In 1796, Martha becomes the mistress of the struggling Plas Ingli estate, at only eighteen years old. She is pregnant and suicidal. Though she loves her husband David dearly, she is desperately lonely in a strange house. There are mysteries surrounding the great fire that devastated the estate but Martha's questions about it remain unanswered. Book 1 of the 'Angel Mountain Saga'

Napoleon escapes from Elba, and the fate of Europe hinges on a desperate mission: Stephen Maturin must ferret out the French dictator's secret link to the powers of Islam, and Jack Aubrey must destroy it. Book 19 of series.

In the spring of 1940, a mutilated body is discovered in a street near Bordeaux railway station. When Superintendent Lannes is warned off the investigation, he suspects that there is a political motive for the murder. In defiance of authority, he continues working on the case. And then another body is found...

Winter, 1942. The war is turning against Germany on the Eastern Front. In Bordeaux, Superintendent Lannes - himself an object of suspicion, with one son in Vichy and another with de Gaulle's Free French - investigates the murder of a woman. It looks like a crime of passion. But the investigation will lead Lannes into dangerous territory.

In the summer of 1944, France is in turmoil. The Allied invasion, bringing the promise of Liberation, is awaited, eagerly and nervously. Superintendent Lannes, suspended from duty by order of the Boches, searches unofficially for a missing girl, and investigates cases of historic sex abuse. His marriage is experiencing difficulties and he worries about his sons, one with the Free French, the other in Vichy.

In St Denis, a local archaeological team unearths a well-preserved skeleton. Yet it's a lot more recent than they'd hoped - boasting a Swatch on its wrist and a bullet-hole in its skull. Meanwhile, an influx of visitors makes Saint Denis unusually crowded, and the key to the body appears to lie with one of these outsiders. Bruno, Chief of Police, must think fast and keep his wits about him in order to work out how these events are connected. Especially if the answer lies a little closer to home.  Book 4 of series.

In 1947, with rationing still biting and the black market thriving, university don C.S. 'Jack' Lewis finds himself pulled into a mystery straight from one of his friend Dorothy Sayers' novels. Susan Temple, his brightest student, has hidden herself away at Rake Hall - a hostel for unmarried, outcast mothers - and hasn't been heard from since.

With no experience beyond catching the occasional student plagiarist, Lewis is hardly a detective. But when Susan's absence continues to haunt him, he teams up with her concerned friend Lucy and together they delve into the disturbing rumours of a nasty racket at Rake Hall. Can Lewis's nose for the truth separate fact from fiction?

Book 1 in the C.S. Lewis Investigates series.

A girl is brutally murdered picking primroses in a Kentish wood and a dangerous criminal set on revenger leads a mass break-out from a manchester gaol. These are just two problems for Gideon of the Yard

1284 and Edward I is battling a traitorous movement founded by the late Simon de Montfort, the rebel who lost his life at the Battle of Evesham in 1258. The Pentangle, the movement's underground society whose members are known to practice the black arts, is thought to be behind the apparent suicide of Lawrence Duket, one of the King's loyal subjects, in revenge for Duket's murder of one of their supporters. The King, deeply suspicious of the affair, orders his wily Chancellor, Burnell, to look into the matter. Burnell chooses a sharp and clever clerk from the Court of King's Bench, Hugh Corbett, to conduct the investigation. Corbett - together with his manservant, Ranulf, late of Newgate - is swiftly drawn into the tangled politics and dark and dangerous underworld of medieval London.

Pontypridd, 1893. A train crashes, and in the chaos of the disaster a killer covers the trail of a violent murder, but one of the crash victims is identified by means of a pocket watch. Two years later, Thomas Chard's arrival in town to take up his post as inspector in the burgeoning police force coincides with the grisly discovery of a body in the River Taff.

Inspector Maigret is standing in the pouring rain by a canal. A well-dressed woman, Mary Lampson, has been found strangled in a stable nearby. Why did her glamorous, hedonistic life come to such a brutal end here? Surely her taciturn husband Sir Walter knows - or maybe the answers lie with the crew of the barge La Providence...

It is Christmas in Paris, but beneath the sparkling lights and glittering decorations lie sinister deeds and dark secrets... This collection brings together three of Simenon's most enjoyable Christmas tales featuring Inspector Maigret and other characters from the Maigret novels.

Pressed into King George's Navy, John Pearce and his Pelicans find themselves working aboard HMS Griffin, in search of the French privateers that prey on English merchant shipping and, if possible, to capture or destroy them. But Pearce has greater things on his mind: he must rescue his ailing father from the dangers of revolutionary Paris.. Book 2 of series.

In July 1939 John Russell returns to Berlin as the newly appointed Central European correspondent of an American newspaper. With his communist past, German son and English-American parentage he's the perfect catch for any of Europe's warring espionage services - and none will take no for an answer. Book 2 of series.

November 1941. John Russell, one of a handful of much-censored journalists, finds himself pushed into serving as a point of contact between the anti-Nazi Abwehr and American intelligence. But his real work revolves around one crucial question - what fate awaits those Berliner Jews who are now being shipped to the East? Book 3 of series.

April, 1945. The Third Reich is on the verge of extinction, and its enemies are already plotting against each other. For journalist John Russell, this has personal importance: his son and girlfriend are trapped in Berlin and only the Soviets can get him in there. But the price of their help will threaten both his and the world's postwar future. Book 4 of series.

November 1945. John Russell is informed by his old accomplice, Soviet agent Yevgeny Shchepkin, that his masters in Moscow have decided it's time to pay them back for securing his safe exit from Russia. Russell must return to Berlin to become a double agent on Stalin's payroll. Together, he and Shchepkin - who has finally lost his faith in the Soviet utopia - hatch a plan to gain their freedom. Book 5 of the series.

Europe, 1948. The continent is once again divided: into the Soviet-controlled East, and the US-dominated West. John Russell and his old comrade-in-espionage Shchepkin need to find a way out of the dangerous, morally murky world they have both inhabited for far too long. But if they want to escape with their lives, they must uncover a secret so damaging that they can buy safety with their silence... Book 6 of series.

Berlin, February 1933. John Russell watches the Reichstag burn, but it's no scoop, even for a crime reporter. Four weeks after Hitler's accession, brownshirt mobs stalk the streets and the press prints what the Party tells it. Russell, a former communist with a British passport should be packing his bags, but while family ties bind him, his assignments draw him closer to the savage heart of the new regime.  Book 8 of series.

Enjoying an overdue break in Venice, the Bishop of Rhyminster has a chance encounter with Oliver Canford; a flamboyant tour guide. Despite misgivings from his wife, Bishop Bob offers him the post of Bishop’s Lay assistant. But Canford neglects his duties in favour of flirting with the Chorister Mums and disappearing to London to sing with his refined choir. But when one of his absences extends to 48 hours, the Bishop worries. He calls in his old friend John Tedesco, who runs a bespoke detective agency with his colleague Lynne Davey.

When a body is discovered in the Rhyme Chantry, a forbidding structure known as “the Cage”, the tiny tourist city is thrust under the media spotlight. Join Tedesco and Davey as they encounter a byzantine world of rival voluntary groups, hard pressed clergy and warring choral societies.

In the second John Tedesco mystery, we find a heartbroken Tedesco returning to Rhyminster to be confronted by the tragic death of a volunteer guide who fell from the cathedral tower in suspicious circumstances.

The subsequent investigation sees Tedesco, his business partner Lynne Davey and Barker the border terrier become entangled in the murky web of local politics. Could the bitter selection process for the next MP provide the missing clue? Or does the answer lie in a long-forgotten tragedy which blighted the lives of a local family?

As Tedesco struggles with his own grief his TV reporter sister acquires an obsessive stalker, who just happened to be on a cathedral Tower Tour when the death occurred. What began as a simple accident investigation soon develops into Tedesco's most puzzling case so far.

In this third instalment of the John Tedesco Cathedral Murder Mystery series, a controversial new bishop arrives in Rhyminster with a clearly stated mission to attack the Woke culture, his every pronouncement stirring up a hornet's nest.

Bishop James appoints a new Chief Executive who instigates a reign of terror throughout the diocese. But before the dean and the old establishment can take any effective steps to tame the worst excesses of the new regime, Bishop James is found dead, with some medieval lettering seemingly etched on his back. The bewildered police forces decide to call on the services of John Tedesco and Lynne Davey as the acknowledged experts in strange goings on in the Church of England.

Book 3 in the John Tedesco series.

AD 1209: When a robbery in Sherwood goes wrong, Robin Hood, Sir Alan Dale and a handful of their outlaw friends are forced to flee their homes to escape the wrath of a vengeful King John and his iron-hearted Sheriff of Nottinghamshire.

After travelling to the Languedoc, a land of good food, fine wine, elegant love poetry and religious tolerance, the Sherwood men find themselves caught up in a blood-soaked crusade launched by Pope Innocent III. Robin Hood and his band become mercenaries in the employ of the Count of Toulouse, tasked with protecting his people, whom the Pope has condemned to death as Cathar heretics.

At the Castle of Béziers, besieged by an army of fanatical Catholic crusaders, the Sherwood heroes vow to hold its walls against these northern French knights until the Heavens fall. But one member of their company has other ideas...

Book 11 in the Outlaw Chronicles series.

This novel is the fourth in the Pets in a Pickle series and describes the antics of young vet, Paul Mitchell, now in his second year at Prospect House, the veterinary hospital, as he continues to tackle an endless variety of pets and clients.

There's an escaped griffon vulture, which terrorised staff in the garden. A bouquet of roses for Beryl, the receptionist, in which lurks a venomous frog. Dealings with Dave, the chameleon. And on the way to treat one of the Stockwells' cows, Paul is confronted by Boris, their amorous bull, who has escaped and now blocks the lane.

Meanwhile in the practice cottage, Willow Wren, he and his fiancé, the junior nurse, Lucy, raise an orphaned fox cub, curb the roamings of a randy cockerel and cope with marauding badgers and the sighting of a possible lion.

Book 4 in the Pets in a Pickle series.

India, 1919. A man is found dead. A note has been left in the dead man's mouth. It warns the English to leave India. If they don't, more blood will be spilled.

Two police officers, Captain Wyndham and Sergeant Banerjee must solve the crime quickly. But there are some people who will do anything to stop them.

It's the moment we all fear: losing our phone, leaving us cut off from family and friends. But, for Louise, losing hers in a local café takes her somewhere much darker... Quick Reads

When Timothy Flowers walks to his usual street corner to see his favourite bus, he meets Charlie. Charlie is a builder who is desperate for Timothy's help because Timothy is very tall, six feet six inches. But when Timothy and Charlie have to collect money from a local thug, things don't exactly go according to plan... Quick Reads