Orion Books

The Russian invasion of Finland in November 1939 was a critical turning point in world history. Only now, with the opening of the Russian archives can this extraordinary story be told in full. Two months after his cynical alliance with Hitler and their joint invasion of Poland, Stalin ordered the Red Army to crush the Finns. Everybody expected a walk-over: the odds were 10:1 in Stalin's favour. But the Finns fought bravely, and the Red Army — its high command decimated by Stalin's purges — fumbled to defeat after defeat. Tens of thousands of Russian soldiers died in the snow. Only after four months and the massing of over a million men and thousands of guns did the Russians break through and force the Finns to accept terms. The 'Winter War' revealed Stalin's army to be as badly led as it was poorly equipped. Hitler's generals, previously so nervous about their leader's plan to invade Russia that they contemplated a coup d'etat to remove him, were now convinced they could win. Stalin's blunder in Finland led directly to the Nazi invasion of Russia the following year. In Britain and France, the spectacle of Russia invading a neutral neighbour shattered the left-wing political parties (although the DAILY WORKER's headline on the opening day of the invasion was 'HEROIC RED ARMY SMASHES MARAUDING FINNS). Attlee expelled one pro-Russian MP and cleared the way for a coalition with the Conservatives. Paradoxically, the 'Winter War' also saved the Red Army and Stalin. With the results of the purges all too clear, Stalin promoted outspoken technocrats like Zhukov and accepted reforms that would enable the Russians to survive the German assault in 1941 and ultimately stop them at Stalingrad.

Yielding to a compulsion he can't explain, Ted Barton interrupts his vacation in order to visit the town of his birth, Millgate, Virginia. But upon entering the sleepy, isolated little hamlet, Ted is distraught to find that the place bears no resemblance to the one he left behind—and never did. He also discovers that in this Millgate Ted Barton died of scarlet fever when he was nine years old. Perhaps even more troubling is the fact that it is literally impossible to escape. Unable to leave, Ted struggles to find the reason for such disturbing incongruities, but before long, he finds himself in the midst of a struggle between good and evil that stretches far beyond the confines of the valley. Winner of both the Hugo and John W. Campbell awards for best novel, widely regarded as the premiere science fiction writer of his day, and the object of cult-like adoration from his legions of fans, Philip K. Dick has come to be seen in a literary light that defies classification in much the same way as Borges and Calvino. With breathtaking insight, he utilizes vividly unfamiliar worlds to evoke the hauntingly and hilariously familiar in our society and ourselves.

The observatory on the moon has the proof. Life on earth will be incinerated in April 2037 by a massive solar flare. It is building down and it is unstoppable. With only 18 months until doomsday mankind must unite and embark on the most ambitious engineering project ever: the construction, at the La Grange point between the sun and the earth, of a deflecting mirror the diameter of our home planet. The price of failure? Extinction. One scientist, an expert on the sun, predicted the flare. One person who knew nothing about the sun nevertheless knew the exact date that life on earth would come to an end. She had witnessed the bizarre time dislocations brought by the 'eyes'. She knows who is responsible.

The Manson looked like a respectable hotel; Dusty Rhodes looked like a selfless young man working as a bellhop; and the woman on the tenth floor who arrived on the midnight train looked like a slumming angel. But appearances can be deceptive — deceptive enough to lead to robbery, treachery and murder ...

Miami's best-dressed serial killer is back and on the prowl, at least he would be if he could shake off his permanent shadow. Ever since their paths first crossed, Sergeant Doakes hasn't let Dexter Morgan out of his sight. Dexter may well be the Miami PD's blood-spatter analyst, but Sgt. Doakes has a pretty good idea of how Dex likes to spend his free time and he's determined to catch him in the act. Dex hasn't killed in months and is getting twitchy. To throw Doakes off his scent, he's spending more time with Rita, his girlfriend. But no matter how many cosy nights they spend in front of the TV, Doakes is still watching. Then a body turns up, horribly mutilated and barely alive. To trap the torturer, Doakes and Dexter will have to work together, if they can trust each other. It's a devil's pact and one of them will have to be the bait...

From the war-ravaged streets of Sarajevo, where turning up for training involved dodging snipers' bullets, to the crumbling splendour of Budapest's Bozsik Stadium, where the likes of Puskas and Kocsis masterminded the fall of England, the landscape of Eastern Europe has changed immeasurably since the fall of communism. Jonathan Wilson has travelled extensively behind the old Iron Curtain, viewing life beyond the fall of the Berlin Wall through the lens of football. Where once the state-controlled teams of the Eastern bloc passed their way with crisp efficiency — a sort of communist version of total football — to considerable success on the European and international stages, today the beautiful game in the East has been opened up to the free market, and throughout the region a sense of chaos pervades. The threat of totalitarian interference no longer remains; but in its place mafia control is generally accompanied with a crippling lack of funds. In «Behind the Curtain» Jonathan Wilson goes in search of the spirit of Hungary's 'Golden Squad' of the early fifties, charts the disintegration of the footballing superpower that was the former Yugoslavia, follows a sorry tale of corruption, mismanagement and Armenian cognac through the Caucasuses, reopens the case of Russia's greatest footballer, Eduard Streltsov, and talks to Jan Tomaszewski about an autumn night at Wembley in 1973...

Four fabulously funny stories that will invoke every family's worst Christmas nightmares, as Horrid Henry sabotages the school play, tries to do his Christmas shopping without spending his pocket money, ambushes Father Christmas with some serious accusations, and endures Christmas dinner with the guests from hell.

Scaldingly sarcastic yet enduringly empathetic, The Zap Gun is Dick's remarkable novel depicting the insanity of the arms race. Lars Powderdry and Lilo Topchev are counterpart weapons fashion designers for a world divided into two factions-Wes-bloc and Peep-East. Since the Plowshare Protocols of 2002, their job has been to invent elaborate weapons that only seem massively lethal. But when alien satellites hostile to both sides appear in the sky, the two are brought together in the dire hope that they can create a weapon to save the world, a task made all the more difficult by Lars falling in love with Lilo even as he knows she's trying to kill him.

She said she'd rather die than marry; she had terrible toothache from eating too many sweets; she consulted a wizard before making big decisions; she drank beer for breakfast and astonished onlookers with her energetic dancing. This is a dazzling little pictorial biography, crammed with fascinating information.

Robert Rankin's THE BRENTFORD TRILOGY — seven books and counting — catapulted him into the dizzy heights of cult success, but over the years that cult following has grown and Robert Rankin is now the second best-selling writer of comic fantasy in Britain, after Terry He Always Makes Me Laugh Pratchett. Were you aware that there are, hidden in the streets of Brighton, twelve ancient constellations, like the Hangleton Hound and the Bevendean Bat... well, there are: and on each one hangs a tale, a tale so strange that only The Lad Himself, that inveterate spinner of tales and talker of the toot, Hugo Rune, can get to the bottom of them. And he'd better do it quickly, because if he doesn't solve the dozen mysteries before the year is out, that'll be the end of the world as we know it. And everything.

First came THE UNSEEN UNIVERSITY CHALLENGE, the Discworld Quizbook that left a trail of exploded minds from London to Ankh-Morpork. Now THE WYRDEST LINK takes trivia to strange new heights, with hundreds more Discworld posers, questions iin the merciless tradition of the Star Chamber, the Spanish Inquisition and Anne Robinson... So is it a good thing or a bad thing to be THE WYRDEST LINK?

Two 19th century stage illusionists, the aristocratic Rupert Angier and the working-class Alfred Borden, engage in a bitter and deadly feud; the effects are still being felt by their respective families a hundred years later. Working in the gaslight-and-velvet world of Victorian music halls, they prowl edgily in the background of each other's shadowy life, driven to the extremes by a deadly combination of obsessive secrecy and insatiable curiosity. At the heart of the row is an amazing illusion they both perform during their stage acts. The secret of the magic is simple, and the reader is in on it almost from the start, but to the antagonists the real mystery lies deeper. Both have something more to hide than the mere workings of a trick.

Do you know the top seven things that drive women mad? Or the real reason why women cry more than men? Or what men are looking for in a woman, both at first sight and for the long-term relationship? WHY MEN DON'T HAVE A CLUE AND WOMEN ALWAYS NEED MORE SHOES gives the low-down on some of the issues that have confused men and women for centuries. From channel-hopping to toilet seats, communication to shopping, relationship experts Allan and Barbara Pease show how you can make the most out of your relationships — or at least understand where your partner is coming from. Already an international No.1 bestseller, this is the essential — and highly entertaining — must-read guide to the opposite sex.

What people say is often very different to what they think or feel. Now, with THE DEFINITIVE BOOK OF BODY LANGUAGE, you can learn to read others people's thoughts by their gestures. It sounds implausible, but body language is easy to pick up and fun to use. Find out: How to tell if somone is lying How to make yourself likeable How to get co-operation from other people How to interview and negotiate successfully How to choose a partner Learn the secrets of body language with Allan and Barbara Pease, bestselling authors of WHY MEN DON'T LISTEN AND WOMEN CAN'T READ MAPS.

Best mates Sandie, Emily and Grazia thought they'd be friends forever, but they reckoned without the dividing effects of men and money... Shopping guru Sandie is on a roll, with a baby on the way and Toby, her posh totty partner, proposing every five minutes. But when she realises the legendary Garnett's Department Store is teetering on the edge of bankruptcy, she knows she's the only one to save it, even though Toby's mother seems determined to scupper the rescue bid. For Emily, Sandie's apparently perfect life is a bitter pill to swallow, especially as Emily's been banned from having a second child by her boyfriend, Will, who is more interested in saving the planet than her. As the rifts grow, will she learn to stand on her own two feet, or give in to a new temptation? Glamorous Grazia tries to play peace-maker but she's facing her own big decision: whether to develop her new career as an erotic embroidery artist... or give up on her talent for the sake of her new, needy lover? Can the magic of retail bring the secret shoppers back together, or is it time to shut up shop for good?

Gaul was divided into three parts. No, four parts — for one small village of indomitable Gauls still held out against the Roman invaders. BOOK 23 Julius Caesar has devised his most cunning attack yet on the indomitable Gauls — he sends Caius Preposterus, a bright young graduate of the Latin School of Economics, to corrupt them by introducing them to big business. But do wealth and success bring happiness?

One Thursday lunchtime Earth is unexpectedly demolished to make way for a new hyperspace bypass. For Arthur Dent, who has only just had his house demolished that morning, this is already more than he can cope with. Sadly, however, the weekend has only just begun. And the Galaxy is a very, very large and startling place indeed... THE HITCH HIKER'S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY became a massive cult success when it was first published and continues to sell all over the world. It introduced such memorable characters as Arthur Dent, Marvin the Paranoid Android, Zaphod Beeblebrox and, of course, the Vogons, and remains one of the funniest, most irreverent and entertaining novels ever.

Anna and Natasha are two friends in their 20s sharing a tired flat in Bradford. Sick of the local grotty club Apollo they decide to go uptown in the search for a better class of man. They begin to frequent the Bartok where they meet Richard and Geoffrey and love blossoms. But Richard is already married and Geoffrey isn't all he seems... Sharp and acerbic, this is a refreshing take on the single life and the hunt for men whose idea of romance goes beyond a curry and a sixpack!

Once he was Sierra Lane, hero to countless youngsters in a series of B-movie westerns. Now, after two years in prison, John Ray Horn lives on the margins of post-World War II Los Angeles. His wife has left him, and, blacklisted by the studios, he makes ends meet by collecting debts for his old Indian co-star, Joseph Mad Crow. Then an old friend, Scotty, contacts Horn. He has come across some obscene photos, including one, several years old, of Horn's stepdaughter, Clea. Within days, Scotty is dead, and Clea has run away. Horn's search takes him from neon-lit ocean-front piers to wooded canyons, from rich homes in the Hollywood Hills to Central Avenue, the Harlem of LA, a street rich in jazz and corruption. But will the on-screen tough-guy hero be able to sustain his role off-screen?

Greece, 1930s. A young British diplomat and his wife have been posted to Athens. But while Hugh Timberlake thrives on the endless parties and socialising, his spirited and unconventional wife Evadne finds her life as an embassy wife stifling. When they go to Crete on holiday to stay in a run-down house owned by Hugh's family, Evadne falls in love with the place, deciding to stay on when Hugh returns to his duties. As she tries to rebuild the ramshackle home, Evadne makes firm friends with Anthi, a woman from the village, and Christos, the handsome and charismatic man employed to work on the house. But the dark clouds of war are gathering, and the little island will become a crucible of violence and bloodshed in the days to come. For Evadne, her friends and family, it will be the greatest test they have ever known.

Seventeen-year-old Haley is a good girl, the pride of her suburban New Jersey family, headed off to college next year with all the hopes and dreams her doting parents can pin on her. So when her mother wakes one morning to find that Haley never came home, and three months quickly pass without any word, the community assumes the worst. Wendy Tynes is a reporter on a mission, to identify and bring down sexual predators via elaborate and nationally televised sting operations. Working with local police on her news program Caught in the Act, Wendy and her team have publicly shamed dozens of men by the time she encounters her latest target. Dan Mercer is a social worker known as a friend to troubled teens, but his story soon becomes more complicated than Wendy could have imagined. Soon Wendy realises she can't trust her own instincts about this case — or the motives of the people around her...

Samuel 'Sailor' Doyle has transferred from Vice to Homicide in the Virginia State Police. He has a mistress, an alcohol problem, a prescription drug dependency, and a burgeoning self-loathing that alienates his wife and family. On Friday 3 July, the rookie investigator is assigned to a double homicide on a rural farm some 15 miles outside Richmond. One of the victims has been interred in a makeshift tomb, while the other is stuck half-in, half-out of a hope chest overflowing with cat litter. And the farm is covered with dead bodies: dozens of cats, sheep, goats, cows, and one dead horse. The mentally handicapped daughter of the victims, Carl and Claire Bruckner, is missing. Doyle soon discovers that Bruckner was a Marine captain who lost his leg in Vietnam thanks to the incompetence of his commanding officer, Lieutenant Colonel Robert Lake — now retired General Robert Lake, and Republican Party presidential hopeful, who will be speaking in Richmond on July fourth — the following evening. What Doyle fails to realise as he follows the various clues is that wherever he goes, he is spreading disease — and not just any disease, but Yersinia pestis. The plague. Is the dead Marine planning revenge, even from beyond the grave?

England, 1911. The Reverend Albert Canning, a vicar with a passion for spiritualism, leads a happy existence with his naive wife Hester in a sleepy Berkshire village. As summer dawns, their quiet lives are changed for ever by two new arrivals. First comes Cat, the new maid: a free-spirited and disaffected young woman sent down from London after entanglements with the law. Cat quickly finds a place for herself in the secret underbelly of local society as she plots her escape. Then comes Robin Durrant, a leading expert in the occult, enticed by tales of elemental beings in the water meadows nearby. A young man of magnetic charm and beauty, Robin soon becomes an object of fascination and desire. During a long spell of oppressive summer heat, the rectory at Cold Ash Holt becomes charged with ambition, love and jealousy; a mixture of emotions so powerful that it leads, ultimately, to murder.

Amber Scott loves her city life — a terrific job working on a glossy magazine, and a fiance, Ed, she's known since Uni. Even if Ed doesn't take her job seriously (as a solicitor, he doesn't have much time for women's magazines!), it is Amber's dream job. So Ed's news that he has taken a job in the West Country turns Amber's world upside down. The new life in Cornwall does not get off to the best start. The huge house Ed was so keen on is, well, huge — what is Amber going to do with four acres? And do M&S make Aga-ready meals? And when a handsome, if surly, man leads the local hunt over her land, it's more than Amber can stand. So how is it that, before long Amber is friends with the local eccentric Lady of the Manor, making love potions at her mother's recommendation — and answering the door naked to strangers...?