Hodder&Stoughton

The fourth of Gyles Brandreth's acclaimed series of Victorian murder mysteries, Oscar Wilde and the Nest of Vipers opens in the spring of 1890 at a glamorous reception hosted by the Duke and Duchess of Albemarle. All London's haut monde is there, including the Prince of Wales, who counts the Albemarles as close friends. Although it is the first time Oscar and Bertie have met, Oscar seems far more interested in Rex LaSalle, a young actor, who disarmingly claims to be a vampire... However, what begins as a diverting evening ends in tragedy. As the guests are leaving, the Duchess is found murdered, two tiny puncture marks in her throat. No one has entered the house; no one has left. Desperate to avoid another scandal, the Prince of Wales asks Oscar to investigate the crime. What he discovers threatens to destroy the very heart of the Royal Family...

One night in St Petersburg, two men meet, both adrift in the brash new Russia: Shutov, a writer visiting after years of exile in Paris, and Volsky, an elderly survivor of the Siege of Leningrad and Stalin's purges. His life story — one of extreme suffering, courage and an extraordinary love — he considers unremarkable. To Shutov it is a revelation, the tale of an unsung hero that puts everything into perspective and suggests where true happiness lies.

This is a story about a woman. And the truck driver who mistook her for a prostitute. The old man she robbed and the hunters who smuggled her across the border. The woman whose name she stole, the wife who turned a blind eye. This is the story of a mother searching for her child. This is a novel you cannot stop thinking about.

Hearing that his old friend Cassiopeia Vitt is in trouble, Malone follows the few clues he has and realises that they are in the middle of something huge, involving Russian and US oil interests and a centuries-old secret. After stumbling across two dead bodies and into the crosshairs of his former boss, Malone finds himself in a race to unravel the mystery of an emperor's tomb, a sinister society, and a deadly battle between two ruthless men for supremacy in China — and the world.

New York is being held to ransom. Manhattan's electricity grid has been the victim of a horrific attack... and more are planned. While the FBI and Homeland Security try to determine who's behind the carnage, Lincoln Rhyme and Amelia Sachs race to decode the forensics in order to prevent the next assault. But all is not what it seems. Electricity can be as lethal as it is vital, and Lincoln Rhyme soon finds he's up against a merciless killer with a unique weapon — one that can be found in everyone's home and office. And in the meantime, one of the few criminals to have ever slipped Rhyme's net is under surveillance in Mexico. The deadly assassin known as the Watchmaker has set his murderous sights on innocent victims, whose identity is as yet unknown... Lincoln Rhyme must race against the clock, juggling the two investigations, as they hurtle headlong toward their deadly outcomes.

Club Gouge: Chicago's edgiest night spot, where a woman calling herself the Body Artist invites the audience to use her naked body as a canvas. The show attracts all kinds of people, from a menacing off-duty cop to Ukrainian mobsters and Iraq war veterans. A tormented young painter comes too, and the designs she creates on the Body Artist drive one of the soldiers into a violent rage. When the painter is shot, the police assume the shell-shocked veteran went off the rails. But his family hires V.I. to clear his name, and the detective uncovers a chain of ugly truths stretching from Iraq to Chicago's South Side.

Isabel Duncan, a scientist at the Great Ape Language Lab, doesn't understand people, but animals she gets — especially the bonobos. Isabel feels more comfortable in their world than she's ever felt among humans ...until she meets John Thigpen, a very married reporter who braves the ever-present animal rights protesters outside the lab to see what's really going on inside. When an explosion rocks the lab, severely injuring Isabel and liberating the apes, John's human interest piece turns into the story of a lifetime, one he'll risk his career and his marriage to follow. Then a reality TV show, Ape House, featuring the missing apes debuts under mysterious circumstances, and it immediately becomes the biggest — and unlikeliest — phenomenon in the history of modern media. Ape House delivers great entertainment, but it also opens the animal world to us in ways few novels have done, securing Sara Gruen's place as a master storyteller who allows us to see ourselves as we never have before.

It's been a long journey for Maurice Micklewhite — born with rickets in London's poverty-stricken Elephant & Castle — to the bright lights of Hollywood.With a glittering career spanning more than five decades and starring roles which have earned him two Oscars, a knighthood, and an iconic place in the Hollywood pantheon, the man now known to us as Michael Caine looks back over it all.Funny, warm, honest, Caine brings us his insider's view of Hollywood (where there's neither holly nor woods). He recalls the films, the legendary stars, the off-screen moments with a gift for story-telling only equalled by David Niven.Hollywood has been his home and his playground. But England is where his heart lies. And where he blames the French for the abundance of snails in his garden.A plaque now celebrates him at the Elephant in London. His handprint is one of only 200 since 1927 to decorate the hallowed pavement outside that mecca of Hollywood stars, Grauman's Chinese Theatre. A very British star, The Elephant to Hollywood is the remarkable full circle of Michael Caine's life.

Ian Greening loves his job at the Department of Work and Pensions. It might not be the best paid job in the world but it gives him lots of scope for fun. He loves his girlfriend, Emma, too. But when Emma is made redundant, and gets a temping job in Ian's office, he doesn't like it at all. Emma only knows Home Ian — and Work Ian is a different kettle of fish. Spending twenty-four hours a day together is too much of a good thing. But how can he tell her that without hurting her? Ian comes up with a plan to get things back the way they were. But it puts his relationship at risk and forces Ian to decide which really matters most: the job, or Emma. A sweet, funny novel about love and work.

Jessie's just arrived in New York, hoping to forget about her awful ex. New Yorker Finn is in love with his best friend's girlfriend. They might be perfect together, but in a city of eight million people, will they find each other?

Reborn as the Flame, Emily has saved Olympus from destruction. The Olympic flame now burns strong, and peace has been restored. But not for long... When the gruesome Nirads begin a new invasion, Emily and her friends become entangled in the conflict as old grudges are unearthed and new enemies are discovered. And all the while, Emily yearns for her father, still a prisoner of the sinister CRU, somewhere in New York. Join Emily astride the magnificent winged-stallion, Pegasus, as she embarks on a new flight of adventure through worlds both old and new. 'Anyone who enjoys mythology will find much to love in Pegasus and the Flame. Kate O'Hearn serves up a winning mix of modern adventure and classic fantasy.' Rick Riordan, author of the Percy Jackson series.

Once upon a time there was a girl who was special. This is not her story. Unless you count the part where I killed her. Sixteen-year-old Alison has been sectioned in a mental institute for teens, having murdered the most perfect and popular girl at school. But the case is a mystery: no body has been found, and Alison's condition is proving difficult to diagnose. Alison herself can't explain what happened: one minute she was fighting with Tori — the next she disintegrated. Into nothing. But that's impossible. Right?

The truth is, not one of us is innocent. We all have sins to confess. So reveals Catherine de Medici, the last legitimate descendant of her family's illustrious line. Expelled from her native Florence, Catherine is betrothed to Henri, son of Francois I of France. In an unfamiliar realm, Catherine strives to create a role for herself through her patronage of the famous clairvoyant Nostradamus and her own innate gift as a seer. But in her fortieth year, Catherine is widowed, left alone with six young children in a kingdom torn apart by the ambitions of a treacherous nobility. Relying on her tenacity, wit, and uncanny gift for compromise, Catherine seizes power, intent on securing the throne for her sons, unaware that if she is to save France, she may have to sacrifice her ideals, her reputation, and the secret of her embattled heart.

Oscar Finley: street cop turned street lawyer. Wally Figg: expert hustler and ambulance-chaser. David Zinc: Harvard Law School graduate. Together, this unlikely trio make up Finley & Figg: specialists in injury claims, quickie divorces and DUIs. None of them has ever faced a jury in federal court. But they are about to take on one of the biggest pharmaceutical companies in the States. David gave up his lucrative career at Chicago's leading law firm for this: the chance to help the little guy stand up to the big corporations. But if Finley & Figg have right on their side, why do his new partners feel the need to carry guns in their briefcases? David thought he was used to cut-throat law from his days at Rogan Rothberg, but this is something else. He knows he was right to get out. He just may live to regret his new choice of firm...

WHAT IF you could go back in time and change the course of history? WHAT IF the watershed moment you could change was the JFK assassination? 11/22/63, the date that Kennedy was shot — unless... King takes his protagonist Jake Epping, a high school English teacher from Lisbon Falls, Maine, 2011, on a fascinating journey back to 1958 — from a world of mobile phones and iPods to a new world of Elvis and JFK, of Plymouth Fury cars and Lindy Hopping, of a troubled loner named Lee Harvey Oswald and a beautiful high school librarian named Sadie Dunhill, who becomes the love of Jake's life — a life that transgresses all the normal rules of time.With extraordinary imaginative power, King weaves the social, political and popular culture of his baby-boom American generation into a devastating exercise in escalating suspense.

Danny is only five years old, but in the words of old Mr Hallorann he is a 'shiner', aglow with psychic voltage. When his father becomes caretaker of the Overlook Hotel, Danny's visions grow out of control.As winter closes in and blizzards cut them off, the hotel seems to develop a life of its own. It is meant to be empty. So who is the lady in Room 217 and who are the masked guests going up and down in the elevator? And why do the hedges shaped like animals seem so alive? Somewhere, somehow, there is an evil force in the hotel — and that, too, is beginning to shine...

Roused by a single drop of blood, Rosie Daniels wakes up to the chilling realisation that her husband is going to kill her. And she takes flight — with his credit card. Alone in a strange city, Rosie begins to build a new life: she meets Bill Steiner and she finds an odd junk shop painting, 'Rose Madder', which strangely seems to want her as much as she wants it. But it's hard for Rosie not to keep looking over her shoulder. Rose-maddened and on the rampage, Norman is a corrupt cop with a dog's instinct for tracking people. And he's getting close. Rosie can feel how close he is getting... A brilliant, dark-hued fable of gender wars, a haunting love story, and a hold-your-breath triumph of suspense, ROSE MADDER is Stephen King at his electrifying best.

When the end of the world comes, Do you want to be the first to go? Or the last to survive?

There was a new shop in town. Run by a stranger. Needful Things, the sign said. The oddest name. A name that caused some gossip and speculation among the good folks of Castle Rock, Maine, while they waited for opening day. Eleven-year-old Brian Rusk was the first customer and he got just what he wanted, a very rare 1956 Sandy Koufax baseball card. Signed. Cyndi Rose Martin was next. A Lalique vase. A perfect match for her living room decor. Something for everyone. Something you really had to have. And always at a price you could just about afford. The cash price that is. Because there was another price. There always is when your heart's most secret, true desire is for sale...

Misery Chastain was dead. Paul Sheldon had just killed her — with relief, with joy. Misery had made him rich; she was the heroine of a string of bestsellers. And now he wanted to get on to some real writing. That's when the car accident happened, and he woke up in pain in a strange bed. But it wasn't the hospital. Annie Wilkes had pulled him from the wreck, brought him to her remote mountain home, splinted and set his mangled legs. The good news was that Annie was a nurse and has pain-killing drugs. The bad news was that she was Paul's Number One Fan. And when she found out what Paul had done to Misery, she didn't like it. She didn't like it at all. And now he had to bring Misery back to life. Or else...

The deaths of four British soldiers, two of them ex SAS, appear at first to be accidental. In fact, they have been targeted by a group of hired assassins, known as the Clinic. This group of contract killers is systematically tracking down elite servicemen and killing them one by one... Desperate to stop the murders, a group of four men, the Feather Men, are recruited to hunt down the Clinic and avenge the soldiers' deaths. But will they get to them in time and what's driving the Clinic's own brutal form of justice? Ranulph Fiennes, himself a former SAS officer, uses his unique knowledge to craft this amazing thriller, now a major film, featuring Robert De Niro, Jason Statham and Clive Owen. Previously published as The Feather Men. The film KILLER ELITE is released in the UK on the 23rd September 2011.

To the children, the town was their whole world. To the adults, knowing better, Derry Maine was just their home town: familiar, well-ordered for the most part. A good place to live. It was the children who saw — and felt — what made Derry so horribly different. In the storm drains, in the sewers, IT lurked, taking on the shape of every nightmare, each one's deepest dread. Sometimes IT reached up, seizing, tearing, killing... The adults, knowing better, knew nothing. Time passed and the children grew up, moved away. The horror of IT was deep-buried, wrapped in forgetfulness. Until they were called back, once more to confront IT as IT stirred and coiled in the sullen depths of their memories, reaching up again to make their past nightmares a terrible present reality.

From battlefield to sacred building, from castle to cottage, from the Bridgwater Canal to Blackpool Pier, historian John Julius Norwich tells the political, cultural, social, religious and economic story of England through one hundred key places you can still visit today. Part narrative history, part exploration of our national heritage, his wide-ranging selection of sites will stimulate, entertain, inform — and certainly provoke — a debate about the most significant moments in English history.

Samuel Johnson — with a little help from his dachshund Boswell and a very unlucky demon named Nurd — has sent the demons back to Hell. But the diabolical Mrs Abernathy is not one to take defeat lying down. When she reopens the portal and sucks Samuel and Boswell down into the underworld, she brings an ice-cream van full of dwarfs as well. And two policemen. Can this eccentric gang defeat the forces of Evil? And is there life after Hell for Nurd?