Macmillan Publishers

‘It was the first murder case I ever investigated on my own.’ Wexford said angrily. ‘There’s no mystery. Herbert Arthur Painter killed his ninety-year-old employer by hitting her over the head with an axe. He did it for two hundred pounds.’ Chief Inspector Wexford was sure that the murder of an old lady had been carried out by her employee, Herbert Painter, and the courts agreed with him. But then Henry Archery, whose son is engaged to marry Painter’s daughter, starts questioning the case …

The year is 1740. George II is on the throne but England's remoter provinces remain largely a law unto themselves. In Lancashire a grim discovery has been made: a Squire's wife, Dolores Brockletower, lies in the woods above her home, Garlick Hall, her throat brutally slashed. Called to the scene, Coroner Titus Cragg finds the Brockletower household awash with rumour and suspicion. He enlists the help of his astute young friend, doctor Luke Fidelis, to throw light on the case. But this is a world in which forensic science is in its infancy, and policing hardly exists. Embarking on their first gripping investigation, Cragg and Fidelis are faced with the superstition of witnesses, obstruction by local officials, and denunciations from the Squire himself. 'This is rollicking stuff. Cragg and Fidelis are an engaging duo' Financial Times 'Cragg and Fidelis make a fine pair of detectives' Literary Review.

'Part road movie, part joyful, nostalgic confession. A masterpiece' Daily Telegraph First published in Spanish in 1998, The Savage Detectives was immediately hailed as a critical success, wining the Herralde Prize and the Romulo Gallegos Prize. But with the 2007 English-language translation the book became more than a bestseller it began the global sensation of Bolanomania. New Year's Eve 1975, Mexico City. Two hunted men leave town in a hurry, on the desert-bound trail of a vanished poet. Spanning two decades and crossing continents, this remarkable quest is a journey told and shared by a generation of lovers, rebels and readers, whose testimonies are woven together into one of the most dazzling Latin American novels of the twentieth century. In 2012 Picador celebrate our 40th anniversary. During that time we have published many prize-winning and bestselling authors including Bret Easton Ellis and Cormac McCarthy, Alice Sebold and Helen Fielding, Graham Swift and Alan Hollinghurst. Years later, Picador continue to bring readers the very best contemporary fiction, non-fiction and poetry from across the globe.

Last Orders is a much-loved classic of English literature. It won both the 1996 Booker Prize and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize. In 2001, it was adapted into an award-winning film starring Michael Caine and Bob Hoskins. Four men once close to Jack Dodds, a London butcher, meet to carry out his peculiar last wish: to have his ashes scattered into the sea. For reasons best known to herself, Jack's widow, Amy, declines to join them. On the surface the tale of a simple if increasingly bizarre day's outing, Last Orders is Graham Swift's most poignant exploration of the complexity and courage of ordinary lives. In 2012 Picador celebrates its 40th anniversary. During that time we have published many prize-winning and bestselling authors including Bret Easton Ellis and Cormac McCarthy, Alice Sebold and Helen Fielding, Graham Swift and Alan Hollinghurst. Years later, Picador continue to bring readers the very best contemporary fiction, non-fiction and poetry from across the globe.

Jack is now five and, like any little boy, excited at the prospect of presents and cake. But although Jack is a normal child in many ways, his upbringing is far from ordinary: Jack's entire life has been spent in a room that measures just 12 square feet; as far as he's concerned, Room is the entire world. He shares this world with his mother, with Plant, and TV and his friends the cartoon characters — but Jack knows that nothing else he sees on the screen is real. Old Nick, on the other hand, is all too real, but only visits at night — when Jack is meant to be asleep in Wardrobe. And only Old Nick has the code to Door, which is otherwise locked... Told in Jack's voice, 'Room' is the story of a mother's love for her son, and of a young boy's innocence.

Living the high life in LA cocktail parties, exotic restaurants and a cosmopolitan boyfriend Ree Drummond thinks she's got it all figured out. But, try as she might, she can't shake the feeling that something is missing. Returning to her hometown to get her life in order, Ree is struck by a bolt of lightning — a blue-eyed, strong-jawed, enigmatic cowboy. She calls him Marlboro Man, and though he's a million miles away from anything she's ever known before, their attraction is undeniable. But with her family coming apart at the seams, her ex-boyfriend still on the scene, and a new career waiting for her in the city, their courtship is far from simple. As life on the ranch beckons (complete with cows, horses, prairie fires and lots of manure), is she really ready to trade in her high heels for Wranglers? Heartwarming, funny and passionate, Pioneer Woman is a story of romance against the odds, and of how love can find you in the most unexpected places.

Miss Emily Fido Faithfull is a woman of business and a spinster pioneer in the British women's movement, independent of mind but naively trusting of heart. Distracted from her cause by the sudden return of a once-dear friend, the unhappily wed Helen Codrington, Fido is swept up in the intimate details of Helen's failing marriage and obsessive affair with a young army officer. What begins as a loyal effort to help a friend explodes into an intriguing courtroom drama complete with accusations of adultery, counterclaims of rape, and a mysterious letter that could destroy more than one life. Based on a scandalous divorce case that gripped England in 1864, The Sealed Letter is a riveting, provocative drama of friends, lovers, and divorce, Victorian-style.

After eleven years of coupled-up domesticity, Rory Carmichael is single for the first time in her adult life. Even she would admit that her ex-boyfriend Martin wasn't the most exciting man in the world let's face it, his idea of a rocking night was one spent discussing pension plans in a Harvester restaurant but Rory could rely on him and, having watched her mother rack up four turbulent marriages, that's what matters. But when she discovers that her supposedly reliable Mr Right is a distinctly unreliable cheater, she's forced to consider the possibility that everything she knows about relationships is wrong. In an effort to reinvigorate both her love life and her lacklustre career at posh magazine Country House, she sets herself a mission to date as many unsuitable men as possible. Toyboys. Sugar daddies. Fauxmosexuals. Maybe the bad boys she's never dated can show her what she's been missing in life. But if Mr Right can turn out to be so wrong, maybe one of her Mr Wrongs will turn out to be just right...

Ten years ago, journalist Ben Webster had his investigation into a corrupt Russian business in Kazakhstan crushed, the cost of his scrutiny a terrible tragedy... Now employed by a private London intelligence agency, Webster's interest is piqued when a client asks him to expose the dealings of shadowy Russian oligarch Konstantin Malin. Before long Webster finds himself fixated by Malin and by his front man Richard Lock. But how far is he willing to risk the wellbeing of his family? And that of Lock himself? Against a background of Moscow, London and Berlin a journey of impossible decisions begins...

Wendy Everly knew she was different the day her mother tried to kill her and accused her of having been switched at birth. Although certain she's not the monster her mother claimed she is she does feel that she doesn't quite fit in... The new girl in High School, she's bored and frustrated by her small town life and then there's the secret that she can't tell anyone. Her mysterious ability she can influence people's decisions, without knowing how, or why... When the intense and darkly handsome newcomer Finn suddenly turns up at her bedroom window one night her world is turned upside down. He holds the key to her past, the answers to her strange powers and is the doorway to a place she never imagined could exist. Forening, the home of the Trylle. Everything begins to make sense to Wendy. Among the Trylle, she is not just different, but special. But what marks her out as chosen for greatness in this world also places her in grave danger. With everything around her changing, Finn is the only person she can trust. But dark forces are conspiring not only to separate them, but to see the downfall everything that Wendy cares about. The fate of Forening rests in Wendy's hands, and the decisions she and Finn make could change all their lives forever...

Kate Forrest is invisible Ned, the husband she adores, doesn't seem to know she's alive, and her two charming children have grown into stroppy adolescents. Her boss is suddenly shunting her towards career Siberia, and her demanding mother is never off the phone. With her fortieth birthday fast approaching, all Kate wants to do is run away from the lot of them. And so she does. On impulse, Kate walks out of her job, her family and her life, and gets on a plane to Italy. With no ties and no responsibilities, she soon finds herself deliriously caught up in La Dolce Vita and the arms of a man barely half her age. But when the unthinkable threatens her family, Kate is brutally forced to choose between her past and the future.

Acknowledging that she was different from everyone else wasn't difficult for Wendy Everly she'd always felt like an outsider. But a new world and new family is a little hard for any girl to accept easily. Leaving behind the mysterious country of her birth, she is determined to fit back into normal life. But the world she's left behind won't let her go that easily... Kidnapped and imprisoned by her true family's enemies, Wendy soon learns that the lines between good and evil aren't as defined as she thought. And those things she'd taken for granted may have been lies all along. With the help of the dangerously attractive Loki, she escapes back to the safety of Forening only to be confronted by a new threat. It's time to make a choice can she put aside her personal feelings for the sake of her country? Torn between duty and love she must make a choice that could destroy her one chance at true happiness...

Wedding writers face particular challenges, envy being one of them, especially if the writer happens to be single, as Lucky is. Who are all these smug people, thinking life is just one great big happily ever after? Does anyone truly believe in fairytales any more? It's a different kind of 'big day' at Your Wedding magazine. Lucky Quinn once a lowly wedding writer is thrust into the spotlight as Editor-in-Chief on the same day that two of the magazine's major competitors fold. Things are looking worse for sacked former-editor Grace Ralston, who has been at the helm of Your Wedding from day one, and is now facing a lonely, uncertain and unemployed future. Meanwhile Lucky must face the confusion and disappointment of her new staff, who are struggling with their own professional and personal issues in the wake of Grace's departure. For better or for worse, each woman confronts her past and deals with her hectic present in this tale of women, work and the world of weddings.

Olympic rowing hopeful and senior Metropolitan Police officer DCI Rebecca Meredith goes out alone to train on the river in Henley on a dark afternoon in late October and doesn't return. When a desperate search by the police and a K9 team reveals the possibility of foul play, Scotland Yard wants one of their own on the case. Detective Superintendent Duncan Kincaid, returning from celebrating his marriage to long-time partner Detective Inspector Gemma James, is called to Henley to investigate. He soon finds that the world of elite rowing can be brutal, and that Rebecca Meredith's ex-husband was not the only person with good reason for wanting her dead. Then, when a search-and-rescue team member is threatened, Kincaid realizes the case may be even more complex and more dangerous than he believed. But it is only when he enlists Gemma's aid that they find that the answers lie closer to home than they could have imagined and are infinitely more deadly. It seems that more than one innocent life depends on their ability to track down the killer.

Having written enthralling biographies of London and of its great river, the Thames, Peter Ackroyd now turns to England itself. This first volume of six takes us from the time that England was first settled, more than 15,000 years ago, to the death in 1509 of the first Tudor monarch, Henry VII. In it, Ackroyd takes us from Neolithic England, which we can only see in the most tantalising glimpses a stirrup found in a grave, some seeds at the bottom of a bowl to the long period of Roman rule; from the Dark Ages when England was invaded by a ceaseless tide of Angles, Saxons and Jutes, to the twin glories of medieval England its great churches and monasteries and its common law. With his extraordinary skill for evoking time and place, he tells the familiar story of king succeeding king in rich prose, with profound insight and some surprising details. The food we ate, the clothes we wore, the punishments we endured, even the jokes we told are all found here, too.

This is the UK number one hardback bestseller from the Man Booker Prize-winning author of «The Line of Beauty». It is the «Sunday Times» Novel of the Year. In the late summer of 1913, George Sawle brings his Cambridge friend Cecil Valance, a charismatic young poet, to visit his family home. Filled with intimacies and confusions, the weekend will link the families for ever, having the most lasting impact on George's sixteen-year-old sister Daphne. As the decades pass, Daphne and those around her endure startling changes in fortune and circumstance, reputations rise and fall, secrets are revealed and hidden and the events of that long-ago summer become part of a legendary story, told and interpreted in different ways by successive generations. Powerful, absorbing and richly comic, «The Stranger's Child» is a masterly exploration of English culture, taste and attitudes over a century of change.

A novel that explores the question: Is there ever a deal-breaker when it comes to true love? Claudia Parr has everything going for her. A successful editor at a publishing house in Manhattan, she's also a devoted sister, aunt, and friend. Yet she's never wanted to become a mother — which she discovers is a major hurdle to marriage, something she desperately wants. Then she meets her soul mate Ben who, miraculously, feels the same way about parenthood. The two fall in love and marry, committed to one another and their life of adventure and discovery. All's well until one of them has a change of heart. Someone wants a baby after all. This is the witty, heartfelt story about what happens to the perfect couple when they suddenly want different things and there is no compromise. It's about deciding what is most important in life and wagering everything to get it. And most of all, it's about the things we will — and won't — do for love.

Koschei the Deathless is to Russian folklore what devils or wicked witches are to European culture: a menacing, evil figure; the villain of countless stories which have been passed on through story and text for generations. But Koschei has never before been seen through the eyes of Catherynne Valente, whose modernized and transformed take on the legend brings the action to modern times, spanning many of the great developments of Russian history in the twentieth century. Deathless, however, is no dry, historical tome: it lights up like fire as the young Marya Morevna transforms from a clever child of the revolution, to Koschei's beautiful bride, to his eventual undoing. Along the way there are Stalinist house elves, magical quests, secrecy and bureaucracy, and games of lust and power. All told, Deathless is a collision of magical history and actual history, of revolution and mythology, of love and death, which will bring Russian myth back to life in a stunning new incarnation.

From the author of the internationally bestselling Sophie Kinsella novels, Madeleine Wickham's newest novel features a house whose asking price includes a stunning renovation of dreams and hearts... Liz and Jonathan Chambers were stuck with two mortgages, mounting debts and a miserable adolescent daughter. Then Marcus Witherstone came into their lives — and it seemed he would solve all their problems. He knew the perfect tenants from London who would rent their old house: a glamorous PR girl, Ginny, and her almost-famous husband, Piers. But soon Liz is lost in blissful dreams of Marcus, Jonathan is left to run their tutorial college, and neither of them has time to notice that their teenage daughter is developing a passion for the tenants, Piers and Ginny. Everyone is entangled with everyone else, in the most awkward possible way. And as events close in, they all begin to realize that some deceptions are just a bit too close to home.

In How the West Was Lost, the New York Times bestselling author Dambisa Moyo offers a bold account of the decline of the West's economic supremacy. She examines how the West's flawed financial decisions have resulted in an economic and geopolitical seesaw that is now poised to tip in favor of the emerging world, especially China. Amid the hype of China's rise, however, the most important story of our generation is being pushed aside: America is not just in economic decline, but on course to become the biggest welfare state in the history of the West. The real danger is a thome, Moyo claims. While some countries — such as Germany and Sweden — have deliberately engineered and financed welfare states, the United States risks turning itself into a bloated welfare state not because of ideology or a larger vision of economic justice, but out of economic desperation and short-sighted policymaking. How the West Was Lost reveals not only the economic myopia of the West but also the radical solutions that it needs to adopt in order to assert itself as a global economic power once again.

From the #1 New York Times — bestselling author of A Woman of Substance comes an explosive novel about one woman's remarkable journey to success. Playing the Game is scintillating... plenty of intrigue, secrets, and steamy encounters. Booklist. Martin's Press.

Hazel Bannock is heir to the Bannock Oil Corporation, one of the major global oil producers. While cruising the Indian Ocean, her yacht is hijacked by Somalian pirates and her nineteen-year-old daughter, Cayla, kidnapped. The pirates demand a crippling twenty-billion-dollar ransom for her release, and complicated political and diplomatic sensitivities render the major powers incapable of intervening. With growing evidence of the horrific torture to which Cayla is being subjected, Hazel calls on Hector Cross to help her rescue her daughter. Hector is the man behind Cross Bow Security, the company contracted to Bannock Oil Corporation to provide all their protection. He is a formidable fighting man. Between them, Hazel and Hector are determined to take the law into their own hands. For nearly fifty years, internationally bestselling author Wilbur Smith has thrilled readers with novels set during the Egyptian era all the way up through the present day. Now, Those in Peril brings his matchless storytelling to bear on the violent, ruthless world of twenty-first-century piracy.

The first book in the brand-new dark and dangerously seductive trilogy from bestselling teen author Meg Cabot. Last year, Pierce died — just for a moment. And when she was in the space between life and death, she met John: tall dark and terrifying, it's his job to usher souls from one realm to the next. There's a fierce attraction between them, but Pierce knows that if she allows herself to fall for John she will be doomed to a life of shadows and loneliness in the underworld. But now things are getting dangerous for her, and her only hope is to do exactly what John says...

The Real Battle On the school field Or in the Olympic Stadium Your competitors smile Whilst plotting to beat you But the real battle Is in your head A brilliant, funny, inspiring collection of poems about sport and sporting events of every kind from PE lessons to sports day to the final of the men's 100m race. There are poems about winning, and about taking part. Poems about having all the right kit, but no talent. Poems that show that it if you are at school being the best egg and spoon racer really is an important to your mum and dad as being an Olympic athlete. Poems about being a team player and poems about being an individual hero. This book is packed with sporting gems of all kinds.