Is Hamlet really mad or is the world mad? Is Othello merely gullible or is there something about his place in society that makes him vulnerable? Why can there be no happy ending to King Lear? In this radical approach to Shakespearean tragedy, Fintan O'Toole, Ireland's foremost theater critic, shows how Shakespeare's plays have been made unintelligible to modern students.Read more
The much-anticipated sequel to The Swift and The Harrier
England, 1685. Decades after the end of the civil war, the country is once again divided when Charles II's illegitimate son, the Protestant Duke of Monmouth,...Read more
The Luckiest Guy Alive is the first new book of poetry from Dr. John Cooper Clarke for several decades3and a brilliant, scabrous, hilarious collection from one of our most beloved and influential writers and performers. From the "Attack of the Fifty Foot Woman" to a hymn to the seductive...Read more
Dr John Cooper Clarke's dazzling, scabrous voice has reverberated through pop culture for decades, his influence on generations of performance poets and musicians plain for all to see. In WHAT, the original 'People's Poet' comes storming out of the gate with an uproarious new collection,...Read more
An anonymous letter arrives at the offices of the Clarendon English Dictionary containing a challenge for the team of lexicographers working there. It's clear that's it's not the usual run-of-the-mill, eccentric enquiry. The letter hints at secrets, lies and a year. 2010. For Martha...Read more
Sheila Hancock looked like she was managing old age. She had weathered and even thrived in widowhood, taking on acting roles that would have been demanding for a woman half her age. She had energy, friends, a devoted family, a lovely home. She could still remember her lines.
So...Read more
It is May 1957. In London eight friends gather for a party. They are all displaced persons who have survived the worst World War II could throw at them. This gathering will be a time to share the fragile joy of liberty. But before the night is out, one of them will be dead. Who would commit...Read more
Livia Denby is on trial for attempted murder. The jury have reached a verdict.
Two years earlier, Livia was a probation officer in Yorkshire, her husband Scott a teacher. Their children, Heidi and Noah, round out a happy family until the day Scott's brother dies.
...Read more
A double life with a single purpose, getting away with murder. Cilla is a 22-year-old contract killer, specialising in the dry a murder interpreted as death by natural causes.Read more
TWO HOURS TO VANISH
Ten people have been carefully selected to Beta test a ground-breaking piece of spyware. Pioneered by tech-wunderkind Cy Baxter, FUSION can track anyone wherever they are on earth. But does it work?
ONE CHANCE TO ESCAPE
Each participant is...Read more
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After committing an impromptu murder, Paul Barker finds himself trapped in a London apartment house.
Paul meets residents, Mayar and Kim, both of whom have dangerous secrets of their own.
While Paul contrives to conceal the crime and make good his escape, the...Read more
Bob Mortimer’s life was trundling along happily until suddenly in 2015 he was diagnosed with a heart condition that required immediate surgery and forced him to cancel an upcoming tour. The episode unnerved him, but forced him to reflect on his life so far. This is the framework for his...Read more
CORRUPTION AT THE VERY HEART OF LAW ENFORCEMENT!
The body of a young woman is found on a park bench, the victim of foul play, all but in the shadow of the Tower of London. When SHERLOCK HOLMES takes the case, the police are oddly reluctant to assist, denying the great detective...Read more
"I collected the first bone when I was twelve. This fact was not mentioned in court... Such a tiny little bone, more like a tooth. I only kept it to keep him safe."
Kathryn Darkling, imprisoned in Holloway, is facing death by hanging for her vengeance killing. Haunted by a...Read more
The night of London's grandest ball, a bold group of women downstairs launch a daring revenge heist against Mayfair society in this dazzling historical novel about power, gender, and class.
Mrs. King is no ordinary housekeeper. Born into a world of con artists...Read more
Tess has a bad habit. She can’t stop snooping through her guests' belongings . . .
When Tess is forced to rent out her late sister’s old room to pay the bills, the urge to rummage through her guests’ belongings overtakes her every thought. Teasing herself with...Read more
From Blackadder to Call the Midwife, from the Cadbury's Caramel Rabbit to Harry Potter, Miriam Margolyes is the outspoken great aunt (after two sherries) we all wish we had - this is (at last) her extraordinary life story, and it's well worth the wait.
Award-winning actor,...Read more
From what is it they run?
He took a while to reply. By the time he spoke the men had gone inside. He said quietly, "They killed the King."
1660. General Edward Whalley and his son-in-law Colonel William Goffe board a ship in London bound for the New...Read more
April Coutts-Cliveden was the first person Hannah Jones met at Oxford.
Vivacious, bright, occasionally vicious, and the ultimate It girl, she quickly pulled Hannah into her dazzling orbit. Together, they developed a group of devoted and inseparable friends—Will, Hugh, Ryan, and...Read more
Poet Laureate of Punk, fashion icon, TV and radio presenter, social and cultural commentator.
At 5' 11' (8 stone, 32 inch chest, 27 inch waist), in trademark suit jacket, skin-tight drainpipes and dark glasses, with jet-black back-combed hair and mouth full of gold teeth, John...Read more
One last chance to reveal the truth...
1996. Essex. Thirteen-year-old schoolgirl Carly lives in a disenfranchised town dominated by a military base, struggling to care for her baby sister while her mum sleeps off another binge. When her squaddie brother brings food and treats,...Read more
It is 1973 and Jude - known to her friends as Toto - has just graduated from art school and moves into a house in a run-down part of Leeds. Jude is a chaotic wild child who flirts with the wrong kind of people, drinks too much and gets stoned too often. Never happy to stay in one place for...Read more
Dorset, 1642. England is on the cusp of civil war.
Jayne Swift, a daughter of the Dorset gentry, has resisted all offers of marriage and instead trained as a physician, using her skills to tend to her Royalist father's tenants and the local population. When civil war sweeps...Read more
Breen sometimes thought sourly that Tiger Jackson would have made a good fascist. He told unreliable stories, he liked power and admiration, and he had all three military virtues- self-belief, luck, and an eye for the main chance. Despite all this, Breen liked him. Somehow it was impossible...Read more
Practical-minded Isma has spent the years since her mother’s death watching out for her twin brother and sister in their North London home. When an invitation to grad school in America comes through unexpectedly, it brings the irresistible promise of freedom too long deferred. But even an...Read more
A regular weekday morning veers drastically off-course for five strangers whose paths cross in a London café - their lives never to be the same again when an apparently crazed gunman holds them hostage. But there is more to the situation than first meets the eye and as the captives grapple...Read more
A young Englishman witnesses a murder committed in a deserted house, a murder of such a nature that presents the murderer as a supernatural being. Was the murder really the work of some supernatural forces or were there some earthly explanation?Read more
It is the summer of 1894. The Garry Street murder is the talk of London, and no one is more baffled than Gerald Conway, in whose library the dead man's body was discovered, stabbed. The only clue to the man's identity seems to be the gold bangle containing a small carbuncle, worn on the...Read more
Julian Edermont lives at the Red House with his ward, Dora Carew and his old friend, Lambert Joad. But things are amiss at the House. First, Edermont suffers a panic attack at church, during the section of the Litany that prays for deliverance from murder and sudden death. Then, he has a...Read more
A man is found poisoned at the foot of Cleopatra's Needle on London's Embankment, apparently having taken his own life. His identity is a mystery that Octavius Rixton (alias Octavius Fanks, detective) is determined to solve. A mysterious cryptogram leads Fanks to believe that oriental...Read more