Macmillan Publishers

The Pasteur Institute, Paris. A bomb explodes, a fire rages, and a renowned computer scientist is dead. Dr. Emile Chambord had been working on a molecular DNA computer that could virtually control all computerized operations around the globe. Now, his groundbreaking research is missing. Overnight, military satellites and communications are shut down by unknown sources. And Covert-One agent Dr. Jon Smith has to race across two continents to expose the next generation of terrorists — a vast network of technological spies who now have the power to reprogram the world. Every government agency. Every armed force. «Every nuclear weapon...»

Dan and Carmen are hip, healthy and wealthy. They have their own companies, plenty of money and friends and are the proud parents of one year-old Luna... They live the cool life in Amsterdam, until beautiful and optimistic Carmen is diagnosed with breast cancer. With that their world transforms into a roller-coaster ride of doctors and hospitals. As his way of coping, the hedonistic Dan faithfully accompanies Carmen to her chemo and radiotherapy treatments, but spends his nocturnal hours crazily immersed in the nightlife and women of Amsterdam and Miami. «Love Life» is the account of a relationship and a terminal illness, devoid of fake sentiment and told with humour and deep humanity. And it is very much an ode to love. «A wonderful novel about courage, helplessness and real love». («Cosmopolitan Germany»).

The world's most powerful newspaper barons — which of them will triumph? At first glance, Richard Armstrong and Keith Townsend seemed to have little in common. One was the son of an illiterate peasant, who emerged from the most backward corner of a Europe ravaged by a bitter war. The other was raised in a mansion on the far side of the world while the war was just another piece of news. Once was a hustler, a thief, ready to change even his identity, if it would gain him a momentary advantage. The other was the scion of a well-known family, groomed for a public role, a rebel who didn't care if anyone approved of what he got up to. One craved wealth, recognition, status. The other quickly discovered that real power comes from anonymity. But they did have one thing in common. Both of them were gamblers. Both were prepared to risk everything in their battle to control the biggest newspaper empire in the world.

One of a graded series of retold versions of popular classic and contemporary titles and specially written stories, The Importance of Being Earnest is Oscar Wilde's comic masterpiece of love and mistaken identity. It first appeared on the stage in 1895 and has been hugely popular ever since.

Tian Tian Zhongwen is a carefully graded, four-level Chinese reader series for upper-elementary to upper-intermediate Chinese language learners. Each book in the series contains 20 stories and the series is graded into one of four levels: Gold, Turquoise, Violet and Rose. Bicycle Kingdom & Other Stories belongs to the Turquoise Level of the series and is designed for low-intermediate level learners. The vocabulary amount is limited to the most commonly used 1,000 Mandarin Chinese words.

'Well... yes, and here we go again' Dr Hunter S. Thompson Indeed we do. Here, in one chunky volume, is the best of gonzo. From Private Thompson in trouble with the air force, to the devastating portrait of the ageing Muhammad Ali. Taking in the Kentucky Derby, Freak Power in the Rockies, Nixon in '68, McGovern in '72, Fear and Loathing at the Watergate, Jimmy Carter and the Great Leap of Faith and much more. An indispensable compendium of decadence, depravity and horse-sense. 'Hunter Thompson elicits the same kind of admiration one would feel for a streaker at Queen Victoria's funeral' William F. Buckley 'No other reporter reveals how much we have to fear and loathe, yet does it so hilariously. Now that the dust of the sixties has settled, his hallucinated vision strikes one as having been the sanest' Nelson Algren.

A Nice Lady in Shanghai is part of the four-level Tian Tian Zhongwen series, a carefully graded Mandarin Chinese language reader series for upper-elementary to upper-intermediate Chinese language learners. The book contains a selection of 20 colorful and enjoyable stories and articles about China. A wide range of topics is covered, including modern China, ancient fables, history, culture, lifestyle, the Chinese language and more. Besides gaining a greater insight into China, the stories help learners increase their Chinese reading and Simplified Chinese character recognition skills through meaningful and stimulating contexts. Each illustrated story contains vocabulary boxes with translations of difficult vocabulary, a Language Points section explaining key grammar used in the story, and comprehension questions to check students' understanding. The book is packaged with an audio CD containing recordings of each story, as well as English language translations to aid understanding. A Nice Lady in Shanghai belongs to the Turquoise Level of the Tian Tian Zhongwen series, and is designed for low-intermediate level learners. The vocabulary amount is limited to the most commonly used 1,000 Mandarin Chinese words.

Anne Elliot falls in love with a handsome young officer, Frederick Wentworth, but her parents do not allow her to marry him because he is poor. Seven years later, Anne meets Wentworth again to find he has become successful and wealthy. Anne still has feelings for Wentworth, but he is angry with her and possibly in love with another woman...

Anne Elliot falls in love with a handsome young officer, Frederick Wentworth, but her parents do not allow her to marry him because he is poor. Seven years later, Anne meets Wentworth again to find he has become successful and wealthy. Anne still has feelings for Wentworth, but he is angry with her and possibly in love with another woman...

Tian Tian Zhongwen is a carefully graded, four-level Chinese reader series for upper-elementary to upper-intermediate Chinese language learners. Each book in the series contains 20 stories and the series is graded into one of four levels: Gold, Turquoise, Violet and Rose. Teahouses in China and other stories belongs to the Violet Level of the Tian Tian Zhongwen series, and is designed for intermediate level learners. The vocabulary amount is limited to the most commonly used 2,000 Mandarin Chinese words.

Lottie Biggs is recovering from her mental disorder of a reasonably significant nature with the help of her counsellor, who rather helpfully looks like Johnny Depp. Things are looking up — her hair is an excellent shade of black, she has a saturday job in a hairdresser and Gareth Stingecombe and his manly thighs are still the love of her life. When Gareth undoes his trousers to show Lottie a fetching bruise on one of the aforementioned thighs, she comes to the realization that, unlike everyone else she knows, she is a total, utter virgin. But how can she get any sort of experience when her boyfriend is doggedly, stubbornly and infuriatingly determined to preserve his energies for the rugby field?

'Fiennes has exceptional gifts, and he has written a small masterpiece, a tribute to the power of place, family and memory' — «Sunday Telegraph». William Fiennes' childhood was one of imagination and curiosity, bounded only by the horizon he saw from the roof-tiles of his ancient family home. His older brother Richard, known for his towering presence, his inventiveness, his great passion for Leeds United, and his suffering due to severe epilepsy, was an adored and charismatic figure in his life. Years later, eager to understand his brother's mind as fully as the ancient trees and secret haunts of his own journey towards adulthood, William Fiennes has written a profoundly moving account of his home, his family's care, and above all, of Richard. «The Music Room» is a luminous testament to the miracle of consciousness and to the permanence of love. 'On putting the book down I felt as if I had been hypnotised. It held me entranced, afraid and awed. All human grief and glory shimmers off the page' — Libby Purves, «The Times».

The past is always there, shaping the future... Fen works in a bookshop and is devoted to her young son, Connor, but she keeps herself to herself. Haunted by guilt and a terrible secret, Fen lives a compromised life, isolated from her family, far from home and too afraid of the past to risk becoming close to anyone. She is constantly looking over her shoulder, waiting, watching, knowing that one day the truth will catch up with her. Sean, on the other hand, is enjoying a seemingly perfect life. He has a successful career, lives in his dream home and adores his beautiful wife, Belle, and their six-year-old daughter, Amy. That is until the day Belle announces she has found someone else and wants Sean to move out. As he realizes that everything he believed in was a lie, his life comes crashing down around him; he is losing everything that's important to him and he can see no way forward. Circumstance throws Fen and Sean together. Slowly their quiet friendship turns into something much deeper and the joy they find in one another eventually gives them the confidence to trust and love again. But will the past tear them apart just as they find happiness? Full of pathos, Missing You is a novel which perfectly encapsulates the nature of human frailty and is also a moving portrayal of the power of love.

Set in the darkest heart of Africa, in deepest Slovenia, in the melting pot of Chicago and in Hemon's native Sarajevo, this collection of linked stories crackles with humour, pathos and irrepressible energy. Recalling the surreal and salient experiences of a life — not least in the narrator's ill-fated expedition across Yugoslavia by night train to acquire a freezer chest and dispose of his virginity — each story confronts pain without blanching but finds delicious absurdity in experience. Hemon made his name writing stories, and this collection surpasses anything he has written to date. 'Hemon is a world-class writer or seismic depth, riptide humour, wine-dark language and unflinching candour' — Booklist. 'An original who owes no debts to anyone' — Patrick McGrath.

Zahra, aged 3, and Hawra, just a few months old were the only survivors of a missile strike in Baghdad in 2003. Their parents and their five siblings all died. Unable to have children herself, Hala Jaber, an award-winning foreign correspondent, was determined to do all she could to help them. Sent to Iraq by The Sunday Times to cover the war, the last thing she expected was to find herself trying to save two little girls who had lost everything. But what happened next tells us far more about that conflict than any news bulletin ever could. Being a Lebanese Muslim, as well as the employee of a London paper, Hala is in the privileged position of being able to straddle two very different worlds and explain one to the other, and her beautifully written and deeply moving account affords a genuinely fresh insight into the Iraq war and its terrible human cost. The praise for The Flying Carpet to Baghdad include: 'I read the book in one sitting and confess I cried more than once. Jaber's story doesn't tie it all up with a neat pink ribbon, but it is all the more telling and universal for that' — The Sunday Times. 'Nothing I have read compares to Hala Jaber's mesmerizing account of how her longing for a baby drew her into an intense, often agonizing, involvement with two little Iraqi sisters orphaned by a U.S missile strike' — The Daily Mail. 'Far from the usual gung-ho memoirs by war correspondents, this is a heart-rending and highly personal story by an incredibly brave woman' — Christina Lamb, author of The Africa House and The Sewing Circles of Herat.

Jimmy Luntz owes money to a man called Juarez. Trouble is, Juarez isn`t the most patient of men. And when he gets bored of waiting, he sends someone round to collect. Luntz doesn`t actually plan to shoot the guy, but the way he sees it, it`s shoot or be shot. Either way, though, Luntz is out of his league, and he knows it.

Lynda Graham has been fortunate in life. She is happily married, with two wonderful children, Ciaran and Katie. She has a beautiful home and garden in one of the most affluent suburbs of Dublin. Her world feels safe and uncomplicated, one she now takes for granted. That is until Jon, a friend of Ciaran's from university — handsome, charming and clever — inveigles his way into their lives. There's something about Jon that Lynda finds unnerving — he is almost too perfect. And her instinct is right: Jon's arrival sets in motion a spiral of events that contributes to the gradual disintegration of all she holds dear. When Jon leaves, his disappearance is even more destructive than his presence. Lynda's quest to track him down reveals unpalatable truths about his past and the reason for his existence in their lives. Lynda knows that Jon is out there somewhere — watching, waiting, malevolent. And she also knows that she must do whatever it takes to protect the most precious thing she has — her family. 'Dunne has a clever knack of turning ordinary lives into compelling fiction' — Irish Post.

The Day of the Dead. El Dia de los Muertos. That time of the year when Mexico celebrates its lost loved ones. But two people aren't celebrating. Nick Vargas, a disgraced newspaper reporter, now true crime writer, seeks the truth behind the slaughter of nuns in a house near the Texas border. And Hannah Freeman, a beautiful prosecuting attorney on holiday from Southern California has lost someone very precious to her — her younger sister, Jen, has disappeared without trace in Ensenada, Mexico. The realization that a sinister cult is at work and that they are behind Jen's disappearance leads them to a small town in Mexico full of dark secrets and deadly rituals, and a series of haunted caves, where something or someone lurks. Watching them. Waiting for the right moment to strike.

The Political Gene is a fascinating examination of the way that many scientists and politicians have sought to use Charles Darwin's ideas to solve social problems, or to bolster political ideologies. Sewell's beautifully crafted narrative shows us what drove people to put a black man on display in a zoo, forcibly sterilize a pair of innocent teenage sisters, lock up a British girl for eighteen years for a petty theft, murder disabled people in Nazi Germany, and slam shut America's 'Golden Door'. In a world where the gene becomes ever more central, the fresh and stimulating arguments in The Political Gene make this an explosive, essential, and utterly intriguing book. 'An accessible, thought-provoking book that refuses to adopt pre-determined battle lines in an argument that looks set to continue raging' — Metro, Non-Fiction of the Week. ' The Political Gene by Dennis Sewell is the only one of the Darwin books that actually explains what really matters — the consequences of the adoption of his theory for the conduct of human affairs' — Evening Standard, Books of the Year. '[This] chilling study reveals how Darwinism became a justification for hateful ideologies' — Sunday Times. 'Scholarly and shocking' — GQ. 'The best book to have come out of the Darwin centenary' — Word Magazine.

Notorious party-loving, 'It Girl' Lyric Charlton has it all — the lineage, the looks and the lifestyle. A moneyed upbringing at the heart of one of the upper class' most well-connected families, a finishing school education and an address book bursting with the world's most powerful and high-profile people has crowned her the glamorous poster girl for the aristocratic glitterati. But when her doomed relationship with suave boy-about-town, Ralph Conway means she takes the good times too far, she is packed off to rehab by her worried parents, and the public shame and private humiliation that follow means Lyric's only option seems to be to retreat into sober obscurity. But what no one can predict is the dramatic chain of events her exile sets in motion. For Lyric's treatment is the start of much more than a life as an ex-addict. It's the catalyst that exposes a complex web of deceit and betrayal — and leads Lyric on an increasingly dangerous quest to find the final missing piece of the jigsaw of her life.

When a young archaeologist studying on a site at Whalsay discovers a set of human remains, the island settlers are intrigued. Is it an ancient find — or a more contemporary mystery? Then an elderly woman is shot in a tragic accident in the middle of the night. Shetland detective Jimmy Perez is called in by her grandson, his own colleague, Sandy Wilson. The sparse landscape and the emptiness of the sea have bred a fierce and secretive people. As Jimmy looks to the islanders for answers, he finds instead two feuding families whose envy, greed and bitterness have lasted generations. Surrounded by people he doesn’t know and in unfamiliar territory, Jimmy finds himself out of his depth. Then there’s another death, and as the spring weather shrouds the island in claustrophobic mists, Jimmy must dig up old secrets to stop a new killer from striking again.

Shetland Detective Jimmy Perez knows it will be a difficult homecoming when he returns to the Fair Isles to introduce his fiancée, Fran, to his parents. It's a community where everyone knows each other, and strangers, while welcomed, are still viewed with a degree of mistrust. Challenging to live on at the best of times, with the autumn storms raging, the island feels cut off from the rest of the world.

Romance dominates Crombie's 13th contemporary procedural featuring Scotland Yarders Gemma James and Duncan Kincaid, who are on the verge of getting married (after 2008's Where Memories Lie). The how, where and when of their wedding proves a considerable source of stress to both, overshadowing the murder investigation of Naz Malik, a solicitor suspected in the disappearance of his wife, Sandra Gilles, an artist specializing in textile collage. Malik was found suffocated in Bethnal Green, with traces of an animal tranquilizer in his system. Meanwhile, James's mother is seriously ill, placing James in the impossible position of trying to fulfill both her familial and work responsibilities. In addition, James must fight to keep Malik's now parentless young daughter from falling into the custody of Sandra's unsavory relatives. Hopefully, Crombie will provide a better balance of police work and her characters' personal lives next time.

Chloe needs a holiday. She's sick of making wedding dresses, her partner Philip has troubles at work, and the whole family wants a break. Her wealthy friend Gerard has offered the loan of his luxury villa in Spain — perfect. Hugh is not a happy man. His wife Amanda seems more interested in her new kitchen than in him, and he works so hard to pay for it, he barely has time for his children. Maybe he'll have a chance to bond with them on holiday. His old friend Gerard has lent them a luxury villa in Spain — perfect. Both families arrive at the villa and get a shock — Gerard has double-booked. An uneasy week of sharing begins, and tensions soon mount in the soaring heat. But there's a secret history between the families — and as tempers fray, an old passion begins to resurface...