Fiction
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NOW A MAJOR TV SERIES BY BARRY JENKINS (COMING MAY 2021)
WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE FOR FICTION 2017
WINNER OF THE ARTHUR C. CLARKE AWARD 2017
LONGLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE 2017
NATIONAL BOOK AWARD WINNER 2016
'Whitehead is on a roll: the reviews have been sublime' Guardian
'Luminous, furious, wildly inventive' Observer
'Hands down one of the best, if not the best, book I've read this year' Stylist
'Dazzling' New York Review of Books
Praised by Barack Obama and an Oprah Book Club Pick, The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead won the National Book Award 2016 and the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction 2017.
Cora is a slave on a cotton plantation in Georgia. All the slaves lead a hellish existence, but Cora has it worse than most; she is an outcast even among her fellow Africans and she is approaching womanhood, where it is clear even greater pain awaits. When Caesar, a slave recently arrived from Virginia, tells her about the Underground Railroad, they take the perilous decision to escape to the North.
In Whitehead's razor-sharp imagining of the antebellum South, the Underground Railroad has assumed a physical form: a dilapidated box car pulled along subterranean tracks by a steam locomotive, picking up fugitives wherever it can. Cora and Caesar's first stop is South Carolina, in a city that initially seems like a haven. But its placid surface masks an infernal scheme designed for its unknowing black inhabitants. And even worse: Ridgeway, the relentless slave catcher sent to find Cora, is close on their heels. Forced to flee again, Cora embarks on a harrowing flight, state by state, seeking true freedom.
At each stop on her journey, Cora encounters a different world. As Whitehead brilliantly recreates the unique terrors for black people in the pre-Civil War era, his narrative seamlessly weaves the saga of America, from the brutal importation of Africans to the unfulfilled promises of the present day. The Underground Railroad is at once the story of one woman's ferocious will to escape the horrors of bondage and a shatteringly powerful meditation on history.
1979
The unmissable first thriller in an electrifying brand-new series from the Queen of Crime.
The shadows hide a deadly story....
1979. It is the winter of discontent, and reporter Allie Burns is chasing her first big scoop. There are few women in the newsroom, and she needs something explosive for the boys' club to take her seriously.
Soon Allie and fellow journalist Danny Sullivan are exposing the criminal underbelly of respectable Scotland. They risk making powerful enemies - and Allie won't stop there.
When she discovers a home-grown terrorist threat, Allie comes up with a plan to infiltrate the group and make her name. But she's a woman in a man's world...and putting a foot wrong could be fatal.
A Line to Kill
'Witty, wry, clever, a fabulous detective story and perfect summer reading' KATE MOSSE
'Funny, intriguing, thrilling and thought-provoking: a marvellous mystery' ADAM HAMDY
'Horowitz ... playing Watson to Hawthorne's Sherlock, serves up a pretty kettle of fish, full of red herrings' THE TIMES
'With a colourful cast of characters, clever red herrings, a locked-room puzzle and chalk-and-cheese banter between the sleuths, Horowitz keeps the reader entertained and guessing throughout, in a wonderful take on the classic crime thriller' INDEPENDENT
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'I couldn't see the sea from my bedroom but I could hear the waves breaking in the distance. They reminded me that I was on a tiny island. And I was trapped.'
There has never been a murder on Alderney.
It's a tiny island, just three miles long and a mile and a half wide. The perfect location for a brand-new literary festival. Private Investigator Daniel Hawthorne has been invited to talk about his new book. The writer, Anthony Horowitz, travels with him.
Very soon they discover that all is not as it should be. Alderney is in turmoil over a planned power line that will cut through it, desecrating a war cemetery and turning neighbour against neighbour.
The visiting authors - including a blind medium, a French performance poet and a celebrity chef - seem to be harbouring any number of unpleasant secrets.
When the festival's wealthy sponsor is found brutally killed, Alderney goes into lockdown and Hawthorne knows that he doesn't have to look too far for suspects.
There's no escape. The killer is still on the island. And there's about to be a second death...
A Nest of Vipers
by Camilleri, Andrea, Sartarelli, Stephen
Fiction & related items
Paperback
A Passage North
SHORTLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE 2021
A story of age and youth, loss and survival that builds into a magisterial reckoning with mortality, from the prize winning author of Story of a Brief Marriage
'Mesmerizing, political, intimate, unafraid – this is a superb novel, a novel that pays such close, intelligent attention to the world we all live in' Sunjeev Sahota, author of China Room and the Booker shortlisted The Year of the Runaways
‘A Passage North is a novel of consciousness alert to the turning of history […] I’ve rarely read something so exquisitely alive’ Naoise Dolan, author of Exciting Times
It begins with a message: a telephone call informing Krishan that his grandmother's former care-giver, Rani, has died in unexpected circumstances, at the bottom of a well in her village in the north, her neck broken by the fall. The news arrives on the heels of an email from Anjum, an activist he fell in love with four years earlier while living in Delhi, bringing with it the stirring of distant memories and desires. As Krishan makes the long journey by train from Colombo into the war-torn Northern Province for the funeral, so begins a passage into the soul of an island devastated by violence.
Written with precision and grace, A Passage North is a poignant memorial for the missing and the dead, and a luminous meditation on time, consciousness, and the lasting imprint of the connections we make with others.
A Slow Fire Burning
THE ADDICTIVE NEW SUNDAY TIMES NO.1 BESTSELLER FROM THE AUTHOR OF THE GIRL ON THE TRAIN
'Shocking, moving, full of heart . . . A Slow Fire Burning shows a writer at the height of her powers.' Observer (Thriller of the Month)
'Superbly told, its twists and turns reveal the slow fire burning inside each which might just destroy them. Utterly compelling.' Daily Mail
'What is wrong with you?'
Laura has spent most of her life being judged. She's seen as hot-tempered, troubled, a loner. Some even call her dangerous.
Miriam knows that just because Laura is witnessed leaving the scene of a horrific murder with blood on her clothes, that doesn't mean she's a killer. Bitter experience has taught her how easy it is to get caught in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Carla is reeling from the brutal murder of her nephew. She trusts no one: good people are capable of terrible deeds. But how far will she go to find peace?
Innocent or guilty, everyone is damaged. Some are damaged enough to kill.
Look what you started.
A Snapshot of Murder : The tenth Kate Shackleton Murder Mystery
by Brody, Frances
Fiction & related items
Paperback
A Suitable Boy
THE INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER AND MODERN CLASSIC: NOW A MAJOR TV SERIES
'A phenomenon, a prodigy, a marvel' Evening Standard
ONE OF THE BBC'S 100 NOVELS THAT SHAPED OUR WORLD
A modern classic, this epic tale of families, romance and political intrigue, set in India, never loses its power to delight and enchant readers.
At its core, A Suitable Boy is a love story: the tale of Lata - and her mother's - attempts to find her a suitable husband, through love or through exacting maternal appraisal. At the same time, it is the story of India, newly independent and struggling through a time of crisis as a sixth of the world's population faces its first great general election and the chance to map its own destiny.
'Seth is the best writer of his generation' The Times