Orion Books

After crashing and burning during his PhD viva, Mason Ambrose is offered a large amount of money to go to a mysterious tropical island — Isla de Sangre. His employer is wealthy recluse Edwina Sabachtani whose daughter has supposedly lost her sense of right and wrong after a diving accident. Mason is to use his knowledge as a philosopher to instil a conscience, a moral compass in the child. Mason happily instructs her in schools of thought, from the stoics to the epicureans, but it is when he introduces Londa to the Beatitudes that the seeds of a rampaging sense of justice are sown. Venturing from the confines of the island, Londa sets out to create a world that is more just. But when she takes her crusade too far, kidnapping a boat full of wealthy industrialists, Mason realises he must take desperate measures...

The expansion of the congestion charge zone, prices going up on the Underground, bendy buses — all ideas brought about to try to make the traffic situation in our capital city run more smoothly. Surely there must be a better way? In fact there is. In Roman times, when the streets were even more crowded, Caesar decreed that all vehicles (except those involved in building work) were banned from the City, while Nero took advantage of a major fire to broaden the streets to improve access. Whatever the problem, from the leader whose deputy wants to replace him to the question of how to make democracy really work, you can guarantee that our Classical forebears faced the same situation and came up with some far more effective solutions than our current politicians. In this enthralling, informative and hugely entertaining book, Peter Jones, one of the UK's leading Classicists, highlights just how much we have to learn from the past and how things really were once so much better.

Nina is the peacemaker of the family — dutiful daughter, sister and wife. Richard is the baby of the family — he's always been spoilt, and in his mother's eye, can do no wrong. Susan is envious of everyone. She has always got the worst of everything — or so she believes. Nina has been married to workaholic Alex long enough to decide that it's time for a child, but for him the moment is never right. There's always another property to buy, another deal to be struck. Or is there something else that's keeping him late so often at the office, something readily on offer that he cannot refuse? But as the secrets of those closest to her are shockingly revealed, suddenly everything is under threat — her marriage, her home and her future happiness.

Lizzie Buckley has a life many women dream of — a gorgeous husband, wonderful home and beautiful (when they're not fighting) three year old twins. But there's a snag. It's not that Lizzie has gone off marriage, as such. Well, not exactly. She's just gone off the physical side of it. Ever since the birth of the twins, she's had a fantasy about locking herself in her bedroom for 24 hours alone with a good book and a box of chocolates. Unfortunately, her husband James doesn't understand her feelings. And when Lizzie hits 'send' on the wrong email, suddenly everything starts to unravel. With the word 'divorce' ringing in her ears, Lizzie finds herself moving out and embarking on a totally different life — new house; new neighbours; no husband. But despite transforming her body, her neglected career and her libido (courtesy of the local landscape gardener), Lizzie can't get over her soon-to-be ex. Still mulling over her failed marriage, Lizzie can't help wondering whether she was ever good enough for gorgeous James. Or, as her mother-in-law suggests, was she just the wrong sort of wife? The other side of much misunderstanding, mayhem and more than a little merlot, Lizzie will find out if she wanted the fairy tale ending after all?

London, June 1940. When the body of silent screen star Mabel Morgan is found impaled on railings in Fitzrovia, the coroner rules her death as suicide, but DI Ted Stratton of the CID is not convinced. Despite opposition from his superiors, he starts asking questions, and it becomes clear that Morgan's fatal fall from a high window may have been the work of one of Soho's most notorious gangsters. MI5 agent Diana Calthrop, working with senior official Sir Neville Apse, is leading a covert operation when she discovers that her boss is involved in espionage. She must tread carefully — Apse is a powerful man, and she can't risk threatening the reputation of the Secret Service. Only when Stratton's path crosses Diana's do they start to uncover the truth. But as they discover Morgan's connection with Apse and their mutual links to a criminal network and a secretive pro-fascist organisation, they begin to realise that the intrigues of the Secret Service are alarmingly similar to the machinations of war-torn London's underworld.

That Sunday feeling... The weekend's over, there's nothing on TV except for the Antiques Roadshow. The only thing you can do is face the fact that the working week is just around the corner. And for Matt Bletch, the working week is not a prospect to be relished. He's moved to middle of nowhere and taken a job at the only school that would have him. Surrounded by social misfits, clowns and psychopaths (and that's just his fellow teachers) he's left his girlfriend, social life and sanity back in London in the hope of earning some cash and maybe even finishing off his novel in the school holidays. Unfortunately, no one told Matt that a year spent in the dead-end town of Buxdon is unlikely to get the creative juices flowing. Walking through town before the first week of term, everything is grey, damp and smells slightly dubious. Will he ever tempt his girlfriend down to stay? Will the kids lynch him? And will Matt survive a year in the place where every day is like Sunday?

Fin, an Irish journalist with little more than a rumpled linen suit to his name, wakes at dawn with a fierce hangover and an excruciating bruise on his thigh. As the first prayer call of the day sounds over Cairo, Fin stumbles into an exotic adventure that will take him to the very edge of his courage, his endurance and his sense of self. He seeks a story — a story about treasure — and to find it, he must first find his friend Farouk, the mercurial teller of tales, who alone knows what Fin needs to hear. Fuelled by whisky and a thousand glasses of tea Fin pursues his quest under the shadow of the Great Pyramid, through crowded kebab shops and into the great emptiness of the desert itself.

Who is Barack Obama and why do we care? Hope for the World includes everything you need to know about the most important man on the planet. With every page bursting with facts and photos, read about Barack Obama's childhood days, his rise to the top job in the world and how he plans to change America, and the world, for good. In celebration of the great man, Hope for the World provides an easy to follow history of America and how a new day dawned with Barack's election to the White House. With global peace, climate change and our futures on top of his to-do list Hope for the World will fascinate, entertain and educate knowledge-hungry fans. It will inspire and inform and be a must have for every bookshelf in the world. Barack Obama fans, schools, pre-teens and teens market, and general readers who want a handsome and accessible biography of one of the most important men in history.

November, 1940. I.A. Serebin, a writer from Odessa and former decorated Hero of the Soviet Union, is on his way to Istanbul following a cryptic letter from a former lover. Ostensibly there on official business for the International Russian Union, an emigre organisation based in Paris, he is drawn into a clandestine world of international spies and political players. With war in Europe drawing nearer, Serebin is recruited by the British secret services — his mission to stop the export of Romanian oil to Germany. In a race against time, Serebin's journey will take him from the glittering salons of Paris to the back alleys of Bucharest and the Black Sea ports, in a covert operation to staunch the flow of oil, the precious 'blood of victory'.

James Lee Burke is in a class of his own for his highly acclaimed, award-winning noir fiction, most notably the Dave Robicheaux series set in Louisiana. Now the very best of his recent short stories have been gathered together in one collection. Burke paints a vivid picture of 1940s and 1950s Texas and Louisiana, from heartbreaking childhood reminiscences to death on an oil drilling barge and betrayal within a rock 'n' roll band. And as you would expect of a writer who cares passionately about his fellow man as well as the environment, the more contemporary stories deal with the devastation left by a hurricane — the despair of those stranded or left widowed by the disaster. Here is the first collection for ten years of stories by a modern master. Become lost in the melancholy beauty of James Lee Burke's writing in this remarkable assortment of tales.

John Tanner is looking forward to a weekend party with his closest friends, the Ostermans, the Tremaynes and the Cardones. But then the CIA tell him that they are all suspected Soviet agents: fanatical, traitorous killers working for a massive Communist conspiracy. Tanner cannot know who are his friends and who are his deadly enemies.

Agent Pendergast has become one of crime fiction's most endearing characters. His greatest enemy is one who has stalked him all of his life, his cunning and diabolical brother Diogenes. And Diogenes has thrown down the gauntlet. Now, several of the people closest to Pendergast are viciously murdered, and Pendergast is framed for the deeds. On the run from federal authorities, with only the help of his old friend NYPD Lieutenant Vincent D'Agosta, Pendergast must stop his brother. But how can he stop a man that is his intellectual equal--one who has had 20 years to plan the world's most horrendous crime?

AYMATE OF THE DAY Jack Ryan has a man's fists, a boy's mind, and the cunning of an ex-con. Nancy Hayes has a woman's sleek moves and the instincts of a shark. Now, in a Michigan resort town, a rich man wants Jack gone and Nancy for himself. For Ryan the choice is clear: Nancy's promises of pleasure, her crazy, thrill-seeking schemes of breaking into homes, shooting guns, and maybe stealing a whole lot of money are driving him half mad. But there's one thing Ryan doesn't know yet: his new playmate is planning the deadliest thrill of all. Razor-sharp and wholly unpredictable, The Big Bounce is an Elmore Leonard classic--a sly, beguiling story of a man, a woman, and a nasty little crime.

Sookie Stackhouse likes living in Bon Temps, Louisiana, and she likes working as a cocktail waitress at Merlotte's. But she is having a streak of bad luck. First her co-worker is killed, and no one seems to care. Then she comes face-to-face with a beastly creature which gives her a painful and poisonous lashing. Enter the vampires, who graciously suck the poison from her veins (like they didn't enjoy it). The point is: the vampires saved her life. So when one of the bloodsuckers asks for a favour, she obliges — and soon Sookie's in Dallas, using her telepathic skills to search for a missing vampire. She's supposed to interview certain humans involved, but she makes one condition: the vampires must promise to behave, and let the humans go unharmed. But that's easier said than done, and all it takes is one delicious blonde and one small mistake for things to turn deadly...

1849: Bess Hardemon arrives at the grimly Dickensian Priors Heath school, little knowing that she will one day end up as an inspiring and legendary headmistress — but at considerable personal cost. 1970: Sarah Beckett is delighted to gain a place at Priors Heath — as much for the pride of her parents as for herself — but will she fit in? The plight of a nineteenth century schoolteacher, trapped by her duty to her job, is mirrored by a modern day woman's fight to escape the shackles of a broken marriage. Bess Hardemon, a tough and canny young teacher is determined to make a difference at her new school. At the cost of her own chance of finding love, Bess remains trapped by her duty, a confinement echoed a century later by Sarah, who must make her own choice between duty and her efforts to save a broken marriage.

Mary Queen of Scots passed her childhood in France and married the Dauphin to become Queen of France at the age of sixteen. Widowed less than two years later, she returned to Scotland as Queen after an absence of thirteen years. Her life then entered its best known phase: the early struggles with John Knox, and the unruly Scottish nobility; the fatal marriage to Darnley and his mysterious death; her marriage to Bothwell, the chief suspect, that led directly to her long English captivity at the hands of Queen Elizabeth; the poignant and extraordinary story of her long imprisonment that ended with the labyrinthine Babington plot to free her, and her execution at the age of forty-four.

Horrid Henry is up to high jinks, causing chaos on his family holiday.

Horrid Henry receives a most unwelcome present...

Gaul was divided into three parts. No, four parts — for one small village of indomitable Gauls still held out against the Roman invaders. BOOK 4 The Romans capture Cacofonix as a gift for Caesar who plans to throw him to the lions. To get into the Circus Maximus and rescue their bard, Asterix and Obelix have to become gladiators.

Inquisitor Glokta, a crippled and increasingly bitter relic of the last war, former fencing champion turned torturer extraordinaire, is trapped in a twisted and broken body — not that he allows it to distract him from his daily routine of torturing smugglers. Nobleman, dashing officer and would-be fencing champion Captain Jezal dan Luthar is living a life of ease by cheating his friends at cards. Vain, shallow, selfish and self-obsessed, the biggest blot on his horizon is having to get out of bed in the morning to train with obsessive and boring old men. And Logen Ninefingers, an infamous warrior with a bloody past, is about to wake up in a hole in the snow with plans to settle a blood feud with Bethod, the new King of the Northmen, once and for all — ideally by running away from it. But as he's discovering, old habits die really, really hard indeed... especially when Bayaz gets involved. A bald old man with a terrible temper and a pathetic assistant, he could be the First of the Magi, he could be a spectacular fraud, but whatever he is, he's about to make the lives of Glotka, Jezal and Logen a whole lot more difficult ...

They're called Lincoln Lawyers: the bottom of the legal food chain, the criminal defence attorneys who operate out of the back of a Lincoln Town Car, taking whatever cases the system throws in their path. When a Beverly Hills rich boy is arrested, Mickey Haller has his first high-paying client in years. The evidence mounts on the defence's side, and Haller might even be in the rare position of representing a client who is actually innocent. But when his case starts to fall apart, Haller quickly discovers that when you swim with the sharks, it's easy to wind up as prey.

In this follow up to CALL THE MIDWIFE, Jennifer Worth, a midwife working in the docklands area of East London in the 1950s tells more stories about the people she encountered. There's Jane, who cleaned and generally helped out at Nonnatus House — she was taken to the workhouse as a baby and was allegedly the illegitimate daughter of an aristocrat. Peggy and Frank's parents both died within 6 months of each other and the children were left destitute. At the time, there was no other option for them but the workhouse. The Reverend Thornton-Appleby-Thorton, a missionary in Africa, visits the Nonnatus nuns and Sister Julienne acts as matchmaker. And Sister Monica Joan, the eccentric ninety-year-old nun, is accused of shoplifting some small items from the local market. She is let off with a warning, but then Jennifer finds stolen jewels from Hatton Garden in the nun's room. These stories give a fascinating insight into the lives of the poor in 1950s London, of the shadow of the workhouse that always hung over their lives but also of the resilience and spirit that enabled ordinary people to overcome their difficulties.

Evelyn Waugh was the last of the great letter-writers, and his witty, elegant correspondence to a wide circle of friends contains more than a touch of malice. In the 1920s Waugh wrote to a schoolfriend about his undergraduate escapades at Oxford and the Harold Acton and Henry Green of his unhappy jobs, his literary plans and the break-up of his first marriage. In the 1930s his boisterous letters recount his successes, social life and travels in South America. During the war, writing to his second wife, Laura Herbert, he revealed the strength of his love for her more vividly than has appeared elsewhere. He was inspired by Ann Fleming, Lady Diana Cooper and Nancy Mitford. Politics are rarely mentioned and he discusses writing only with someone he recognises as an equal, like Graham Greene. His deeply felt religious beliefs are expressed to John Betjeman. But Waugh's main concern is to amuse — and in this he is triumphantly successful.

When LAPD detective Harry Bosch shot and killed Norman Church, the 'Dollmaker', the police were convinced it marked the end of the search for one of the city's most bizarre serial killers. But four years later, Norman Church's widow is taking Bosch to court, accusing him of killing the wrong man. To make matters worse, Bosch has just received a note, eerily reminiscent of the ones the Dollmaker used to taunt him with, giving him a location where a body can be found. Is the Dollmaker still alive? Or is this the work of a vicious copycat killer, determined to repeat the Dollmaker's grisly feats and destroy Bosch's career in the process?