Patrick Purser

The Battle of Jutland exposed the battlecruisers’ weakness: its armour could be pierced by a single shell. In 1943, as Britain prepares to invade occupied Europe, Captain Guy Sherbrooke takes command of HMS Reliant, one of only two battlecruisers to have survived. He knows he could be her last captain.

When Joseph the Bellmaker is warned in a dream that his daughter Mariel is in danger, his hopes of saving her are slim. For the evil Foxwolf and his horde of rats are coming to Southsward and Mariel is his prisoner. But can the legendary Martin the Warrior return from the past to save them. Or is it too late...?

When Barnacle falls down the wrong chimney he stumbles unwittingly into the midst of a web of murder and deceit.

What are deserts? How are they formed? This book answers these questions and many more.

Terrors are revealed by day and night in an ancient Welsh village where a new family comes together for the first time.

In May 1942, Lt. John Carbis joins HMS Urgent, based on besieged Malta and skippered by the cool and harsh "Hammer" Hawke. Their mission is to disrupt Germany's supplies to Rommel's Afrika Korps since, unless the Allies stop Rommel's eastward advance, they may lose the war.

Twelve true-life escape and evasion stories from the Second World War.

An absorbing history from early biblical times to the present day of a city celebrated and revered for centuries by Jews, Christians and Muslims.

September 1804 and Richard Bolitho sets sail for the Caribbean on his veteran ship, Hyperion, to effect a daring raid on the Spanish Main. In Antigua Bolitho rediscovers a passion which may threaten his reputation. The future of Hyperion is at risk too and it seems that this may be her final battle.  Book 19 of series.

1944 and Ian Ransome, Captain of the fleet minesweeper, HMS Rob Roy, faces the daily risk of death. As the Allies prepare for D-Day, Ransome takes on his most dangerous mission yet, which will push both captain and crew members to the limits.

Portrait of a leader who fought passionately to unite S Africa in the first half of the 20th century;

A novel about the Battle of the Atlantic seen through the eyes of both British and German seamen. Lieutenant-Commander David Howarth, in charge of HMS Gladiator, is engaged in a relentless and savage war against an ever-present enemy and a violent sea.

The warship HMS Beaufort is in a race against time to evacuate western civilians from a civil war in Africa.

A biography of the family of the Dalai Lama.

A sailor fights to clear his name after his ship sinks in the last days of World War II, taking its cargo of bullion to the bottom of the sea.

A look at dinosaurs over the 160-million-year time span in which they flourished and how the latest fossils help us to understand more about these prehistoric creatures.

Magnus Pym, counsellor at the British Embassy in Vienna, has suddenly vanished, believed defected. The chase is on: for a missing husband, a devoted father, and a lifetime secret agent…

"Hurricane Grace" occurred when a high-pressure system from the Great Lakes ran into storm winds over an Atlantic island and collided with a weather system from the Caribbean. This account of that storm is told through the accounts of fishermen at sea, their families, and the rescue services.

Plenty of excitement, a little danger, a lot of thinking, planning and fun in connection with a gold mine. More adventures with John, Titty and Roger - the Swallows, Nancy and Peggy Blackett - the Amazons, joined this time by Dick and Dorothea and some pigeons!

Is the world really on the brink of disaster and if so, why? This book examines the causes of pollution and the effects.

The story of Taita, the eunuch slave, his life in Egypt and his flight, with his fellow-countrymen, from the Hyksos invasion and their eventual return.  Book 1 of series.

A vivid introduction to the world of physical geography and how people both share and depend on their environment.

An American emigration ship is grounded off the West of England in 1830, but the American crew prove a disturbing presence to the locals.

Set in ancient Greece. Cleo, a slave, escapes and is marooned on an island haunted by strange echoes.

Remarkable story of a young man captured by the Japanese in Malaya in World War 2 compiled from a small diary he kept hidden.

Tim Blackburn sets out to find his brilliant but wayward daughter, Nicole, who has disappeared in the company of an environmental activist, who is leader of the Genesis community, notorious for their violence. Eventually, Blackburn, the hunter, becomes Blackburn the hunted, as he precipitates a terrifying confrontation with the evil he finds.  Book 4 of series.

TV weather man Bill Giles explains all the different phenomena which go to make up our weather picture.

The compilation of the Oxford English Dictionary was a fifty year task needing many volunteers. One of these was a surgeon turned lunatic, imprisoned in Broadmoor Asylum for murder!

The story of King Arthur's birth and how he became King of Britain by drawing a miraculous sword from a stone.

Nick Pope first encountered reports of alien abduction while investigating UFOs for the British Government.

A childhood during the Depression in a poor north London suburb and the RAF for a university do not make a traditional Conservative! His upward mobility is thus all the more surprising and his own story shows how useful he became to the Conservative Party and Mrs Thatcher. The price has been a heavy one.

The author reveals the complex, witty and generous man known to all true walkers for his Pictorial Guides to the Lakeland Fells.

The search in the Himalayas for the snow leopard becomes a spiritual journey;