Little, Brown and Company

Joseph O’Loughlin appears to have the perfect life — a beautiful wife, a loving daughter and a successful career as a clinical psychologist. But nothing can be taken for granted. Even the most flawless existence is only a loose thread away from unravelling. All it takes is a murdered girl, a troubled young patient and the biggest lie of his life. Caught in a complex web of deceit and haunted by images of the slain girl, he embarks upon a search that will take him from London to Liverpool and into the darkest recesses of the human mind. Ultimately, he will risk everything to unmask the killer and save his family.

In «Scar Tissue» Anthony Kiedis, charismatic and highly articulate frontman of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, recounts his remarkable life story, and the history of the band itself. Raised in the Midwest, he moved to LA aged eleven to live with his father Blackie, purveyor of pills, pot, and cocaine to the Hollywood elite. After a brief child-acting career, Kiedis dropped out of U.C.L.A. and plunged headfirst into the demimonde of the L.A. underground music scene. He formed the band with three schoolfriends — and found his life's purpose. Crisscrossing the country, the Chili Peppers were musical innovators and influenced a whole generation of musicians. But there’s a price to pay for both success and excess and in «Scar Tissue», Kiedis writes candidly of the overdose death of his soul mate and band mate, Hillel Slovak, and his own ongoing struggle with an addiction to drugs. «Scar Tissue» far transcends the typical rock biography, because Anthony Kiedis is anything but a typical rock star. It is instead a compelling story of dedication and debauchery, of intrigue and integrity, of recklessness and redemption.

Ever been offered a promotion that seems too good to be true? You know — the sort they’d be insane to be offering to someone like you. The kind where you snap their arm off to accept, then wonder why all your long-serving colleagues look secretly relieved, as if they’re off some strange and unpleasant hook … It’s the kind of trick that deeply sinister companies like J.W. Wells & Co. pull all the time. Especially with employees who are too busy mooning over the office intern to think about what they’re getting into. And it’s why, right about now, Paul Carpenter is wishing he’d paid much less attention to the gorgeous Melze, and rather more to a little bit of job description small-print referring to ‘pest’ control …

Affinity is a tale of power and possession that Henry James himself might admire. In her first novel, Tipping the Velvet, Sarah Waters explored secrets and longing — capping off this lesbian romp with a utopian-socialist vision. Her intricate follow-up is just as sensual but infinitely darker, its moral more difficult to descry. Its stylistic and psychological rewards, however, are visible at every turn, the author's persuasive imagination matched by her gift for storytelling. In late September 1874, Margaret Prior makes her way through the pentagons of London's Millbank Prison, a place of fearful symmetry and endless corridors. This plain woman on the verge of 30 has come to comfort those behind bars, several of whom Waters brings to instant, sad life. And our Lady Visitor plans to take her role dead seriously, having recovered from two years of nervous indolence in her family's Chelsea house. One person, however, makes her job a passion. Opening an inspection slit (or «eye» as these devices are known), Margaret hears «a perfect sigh, like a sigh in a story». Peering inward, she's confronted by the most erotic of visions — a woman turned toward the sun, caressing her cheek with a forbidden violet: «As I watched, she put the flower to her lips, and breathed upon it, and the purple of the petals gave a quiver and seemed to glow...» Selina Dawes may indeed have the face of a Crivelli angel, but this medium is in for fraud and assault, her last session having gone very badly indeed. Suffice it to say that the first full encounter between these two very different women is enthralling. «You think spiritualism a kind of fancy», Selina riddles. «Doesn't it seem to you, now you are here, that anything might be real, since Millbank is?» And soon enough Margaret receives several viable signs of the supernatural: a locket disappears from her room, flowers mysteriously appear, and her dazzling friend knows everything about her. Strangest of all, Selina seems to love her. As Margaret records her weekly prison forays, her own past comes into focus, notably her plans to travel to Italy with her first love (who is now her sister-in-law). But her current journal, she convinces herself, is to be very different from her last one, which «took as long to burn as human hearts, they say, do take.» Meanwhile, Waters offers a narrative two-for-one, placing Margaret's diary cheek by jowl with Selina's chronicle of her pre-Millbank existence. This dispassionate, staccato record initially suggests that we can separate truth from desire. Or can we? What Waters's haunting creation leaves us with is a more painful reality--that knowledge and belief are entirely different things.

In 1978, gifted student and writer Greg Roberts turned to heroin when his marriage collapsed, feeding his addiction with a string of robberies. Caught and convicted, he was given a nineteen-year sentence. After two years, he escaped from a maximum-security prison, spending the next ten years on the run as Australia's most wanted man. Hiding in Bombay, he established a medical clinic for slum-dwellers, worked in the Bollywood film industry and served time in the notorious Arthur Road prison. He was recruited by one of the most charismatic branches of the Bombay mafia for whom he worked as a forger, counterfeiter, and smuggler, and fought alongside a unit of mujaheddin guerrilla fighters in Afghanistan. His debut novel, SHANTARAM, is based on this ten-year period of his life in Bombay. The result is an epic tale of slums and five-star hotels, romantic love and prison torture, mafia gang wars and Bollywood films. A gripping adventure story, SHANTARAM is also a superbly written meditation on good and evil and an authentic evocation of Bombay life.

Five years after the horrific crash of TWA Flight 800 over Long Island which killed 230 people, John Corey is inadvertently caught up in the now-closed case by his FBI lawyer wife, Kate, who believes the government's findings of mechanical failure is wrong. The FBI don't take kindly to the case being looked into again and, as John Corey's instincts and investigations clearly show anomalies, he and Kate are sent off to the Yemen and Tanzania for a month or so each as punishment. On his return, John is not put off — he has ten days' leave. Ten days in which to avoid the FBI and to find that elusive video tape taken by two adulterous lovers on the beach which may — or may not — show a sea-to-air missile racing up to hit the TWA Flight 800... An exciting, edge-of-the-seat thriller — Nelson DeMille's best to date.

Jessica Clarke had been set alight twenty years ago. Her attacker, quickly tracked down and eager to confess, was still in jail, his career as a hitman for North London gangs now well behind him. So who is harassing Carol Chamberlain, the arresting officer in that case, and claiming that he is the one who burned the girl? Now retired, Carol turns to DI Tom Thorne for help. He's up to his neck in an investigation into a series of killings, which appears to be the result of a turf war between rival gangs, and he's fed up to the gills with reporting to DCI Tughan, so helping Carol out looks like a good deed in a naughty world. Only the world is about to turn much nastier, so nasty in fact that he finds himself longing for a straightforward psycopath to hunt down. In Mark Billingham's fourth novel, he explores the effects of violence and greed on the lives of those who exploit their fellow beings in a novel of exceptional power.

UNSEEN VOGUE goes beyond the cliches and often repeated 'greatest hits' of fashion photography and tells a completely new story. Drawn from the archives of British Vogue, an immense resource of over 1,000,000 images, the book presents hundreds of images never seen before — the killed pictures, rejects and out-takes — to form a fresh, new history of fashion photography. Featuring the first attempts of many now internationally famous photographers, great pictures by forgotten masters, out-takes from famous shoots and many other extraordinary and sometimes controversial pictures. By showing contact sheets and unedited film UNSEEN VOGUE opens up the process of making fashion images, previously the reserve of fashion's inner circle. From Irving Penn to David Bailey, from Cecil Beaton to Mario Testino — the new book will be an authoritative addition to the documented history of fashion photography.

By chance, two men — one English, the other French — meet in a provincial railway station. Their physical resemblance is uncanny, and they spend the next few hours talking and drinking — until at last John, the Englishman, falls into a drunken stupour. It's to be his last carefree moment, for when he wakes, his French companion has stolen his identity and disappeared. So John steps into the Frenchman's shoes, and faces a variety of perplexing roles — as owner of a chateau, director of a failing business, head of a fractious family, and master of nothing. Gripping and complex, The Scapegoat is a masterful exploration of doubling and identity, and of the dark side of the self.

Inspired by a grisly discovery in the nineteenth century, The King's General was the first of du Maurier's novels to be written at Menabilly, the model for Manderley in Rebecca. Set in the seventeenth century, it tells the story of a country and a family riven by war, and features one of fiction's most original heroines. Honor Harris is only eighteen when she first meets Richard Grenvile, proud, reckless — and utterly captivating. But following a riding accident, Honor must reconcile herself to a life alone. As Richard rises through the ranks of the army, marries and makes enemies, Honor remains true to him, and finally discovers the secret of Menabilly.

'Perhaps we shall not see each other again. I will write to you, though, and tell you, as best I can, the story of your family. A glass-blower, remember, breathes life into a vessel, giving it shape and form and sometimes beauty; but he can with that same breath, shatter and destroy it'. Faithful to her word, Sophie Duval reveals to her long-lost nephew the tragic story of a family of master craftsmen in eighteenth-century France. The world of the glass-blowers has its own traditions, it's own language — and its own rules. 'If you marry into glass'. Pierre Labbe warns his daughter, 'you will say goodbye to everything familiar, and enter a closed world'. But crashing into this world comes the violence and terror of the French Revolution against which, the family struggles to survive. The Glass Blowers is a remarkable achievement — an imaginative and exciting reworking of du Maurier's own family history.

In Regency London, the only way for a woman to succeed is to beat men at their own game. So when Mary Anne Clarke seeks an escape from her squalid surroundings in Bowling Inn Alley, she ventures first into the scurrilous world of the pamphleteers. Her personal charms are such, however, that before long she comes to the notice of the Duke of York. With her taste for luxury and power, Mary Anne, now a royal mistress, must aim higher. Her lofty connections allow her to establish a thriving trade in military commissions, provoking a scandal that rocks the government — and brings personal disgrace. A vivid portrait of overweening ambition, MARY ANNE is set during the Napoleonic Wars and based on du Maurier's own great-great- grandmother.

'It is rather awful, Emma thought as she walked across the fields down to the farm, how this business is leading us all into subterfuge and deception, and we can't really tell who is friend and who is enemy'... Emma wakes up one morning to an apocalyptic world. The cosy existence she shares with her grandmother, a famous retired actress, has been shattered: there's no post, no telephone, no radio — and an American warship sits in the harbour. As the two women piece together clues about the 'friendly' military occupation on their doorstep, family, friends and neighbours gather round to protect their heritage. In this chilling novel of the future, Daphne du Maurier explores the implications of a political, economic and military alliance between Britain and the United States.

This illustrated volume celebrates London's history and present, providing a record of its architecture. The text highlights the spirit of each area through its history and the essence of life there today. It includes quotations from chroniclers such as Pepys, Wordsworth and Dickens.

From the moment the first Homo Sapiens descended from the trees, possibly onto their heads, humanity has striven towards civilisation. Fire. The Wheel. Running Away from furry things with more teeth than one might reasonably expect — all are testament to man's ultimate ascendancy. It is a noble story, a triumph of intelligence over adversity and so, of course, complete and utter fiction. For one man has discovered the hideous truth: that humanity's ascent has been ruthlessly guided by a small gang of devious frogs.

When You Live The Dream, You Live The Consequences… Cool, blonde Carter Graham is a successful lawyer who believes she is well on the way to reaching all the goals listed in her glamorous life plan: first-class job, a stylish flat in London, and marriage to the man of her dreams, Kim Betz. But Carter forgot that sometimes the best laid dreams turn into nightmares. Kim's ex-wife Sophie starts to stalk her and Kim turns from being the self-contained, controlled husband into a man who lies not only about his past but about his present. Carter finds herself drawn into an expanding web of deceit, corruption and evil which eventually threatens not only her sanity but her life. What is it that Sophie is trying so hard to tell her? Who is the sinister Mrs Mayfield, who has such an influence on Kim? And what is the significance of the other new man in Carter's life, her secretary Eric Tucker? Carter seeks help from the healers of St. Benets, the enigmatic Nicholas Darrow, the eccentric Lewis Hall, and kind, thoughtful Alice but even they cannot save her from a searing ordeal as she struggles to uncover the truth about the tormented man she has married.

THE LOVE MACHINE In a time when steak, vodka and sleeping pills were the staples of a healthy diet and when movie stars wore wigs to bed, the TV set was known as ‘the love machine’, creating dreams, promising fame, bringing success. But for supermodel Amanda, socialite Judith and journalist Maggie, ‘the love machine’ meant something else — Robin Stone, brilliant, dynamic, magnetic… ONCE IS NOT ENOUGH Once upon a time, the entertainment industry was a place that never slept, as magazine editors, models and pop stars visited ‘vitamin doctors’ for the shots that would allow them to work all day and play all night. In this world, January Wayne goes from poor-little-rich-girl to grown-up swinger, as she searches New York and Los Angeles for a guy like Mike Wayne, the glamorous movie producer who also happens to be her father…

A powerful, exuberant romance through three generations, of Cornwall, of passion and drama, of sailing ships and the glory of wind and sea. Janet Coombe was born with the loving spirit and she passed it on to her son Joseph. In Janet's great-granddaughter Jennifer, it again reappeared, to break down the barrier of years. Wild and eerie, it was something that carried them beyond all prudence in their need to love and be loved.

Pigs might not fly but they are strangely altered. So, for that matter, are wolves and racoons. A man, once named Jimmy, lives in a tree, wrapped in old bedsheets, now calls himself Snowman. The voice of Oryx, the woman he loved, teasingly haunts him. And the green-eyed Children of Crake are, for some reason, his responsibility.

After her resignation as Virginia's Chief Medical Examiner and the horrifying events which threatened her life in The Last Precinct, Kay Scarpetta has abandoned her elegant home in Richmond and is quietly living in Florida, beginning to get some balance back in her life and slowly establishing herself as a private forensic consultant. But her past won't let her rest, and her grief for Benton Wesley continues to grow, not diminish, as does the rage within Lucy, her niece. Then the architect of her changed fortunes contacts her from his cell on death row: deformed, blinded by Scarpetta's own actions, incarcerated in Texas strongest prison, Jean-Baptiste Chardonne still has the ability to terrify. But, unkown to Scarpetta, there are other forces behind the wolfman's apparent actions, invisibly shepherding her and those closest to her towards eliminating those who threaten them all. And it is all orchestrated by the one man in her life who knows every nuance of her soul.

Music illuminates a person and provides him with his last hope; even Stalin, a butcher, knew that…' So said the Russian composer Dmitri Shostakovich, who spent his life battling for the right to create his works under the Soviet Union's totalitarian regime. This proved dangerous under the autocratic Stalin, who perceived himself to be an erudite critic of modern culture. So when he stormed out of the performance of Shostakovich's opera 'Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk' in 1936, the composer feared he would be arrested and killed. Instead, the 'supreme leader' played a game of cat and mouse. He would attack Shostakovich in Pravda and ban his music from the airwaves. Then he would honour him with prestigious awards. Stalin's goal was to remain unpredictable, and thus afford Shostakovich no sense of personal security, although he continued to compose stirring symphonies that drew him millions of fans. This is a fascinating and important story told by one of the greatest authorities on Russian culture in the Soviet years.

When Janey Wilcox makes it big as a Victoria's Secret model, she finally gets the celebrity status she has always craved. Suddenly the car of her dreams is hers, and even better, so is that house in New York's exclusive Hamptons. No longer will she have to choose her boyfriends according to who has a house she can summer in. At the most exclusive of Hampton parties, Janey finds herself mingling with Hollywood celebrities and the cream of New York society. But all this is secondary when she is charmed and captivated by a handsome, successful man, a man who quickly becomes her new beau. Janey, though, is not the type to live happily ever after, especially with her chequered past of far from good behaviour…

»The Five People You Meet in Heaven» is a wonderfully moving fable that addresses the meaning of life, and life after death, in the poignant way that made «Tuesdays with Morrie» such an astonishing book. The novels protagonist is an elderly amusement park maintenance worker named Eddie who, while operating a ride called the Free Fall, dies while trying to save a young girl who gets in the way of a falling cart that hurtles to earth. Eddie goes to heaven, where he meets five people who were unexpectedly instrumental in some way in his life. While each guide takes him through heaven, Eddie learns a little bit more about what his time on earth meant, what he was supposed to have learned, and what his true purpose on earth was. Throughout there are dramatic flashbacks where we see scenes from his troubled childhood, his years in the army in the Philippines jungle, and with his first and only love, his wife Marguerite. «The Five People You Meet in Heaven» is the perfect book to follow «Tuesdays with Morrie». Its compellingly affecting themes and lyrical writing will fascinate Mitch Alboms huge readership.

This is the first book in a series of supernatural thrillers.