Showing results by narrator "Saul Reichlin" in All Categories

As the first novel opens, Titus, heir to Lord Sepulchrave, has just been born: He stands to inherit the miles of rambling stone and mortar that stand for Gormenghast Castle. Inside, all events are predetermined by a complex ritual, lost in history, understood only by Sourdust, Lord of the Library. There are tears and strange laughter; fierce births and deaths beneath umbrageous ceilings; dreams and violence and disenchantment contained within a labyrinth of stone.

Nothing drove Henry VIII, England's wealthiest and most powerful king, more than producing a legitimate male heir and perpetuating his dynasty. To that end he married six wives, became the subject of the most notorious divorce case of the sixteenth century, and broke with the Pope, all in an age of international competition and warfare, social unrest and growing religious intolerance and discord.

When the body of an Australian backpacker is found in Spain, an online group of amateur true crime sleuths springs up around the world, attempting to solve the mystery of her death. Foremost on the message boards is Astria, a young Norwegian woman whose feverish pursuit takes her closer than anyone to solving the case. But just as she makes her claim of unravelling the mystery, she goes offline.

Three years ago, Saga Bauer received a postcard with a threatening text about a gun with nine white bullets - one of which is waiting for Detective Joona Linna. But time passed and the threat faded. Until now....

The 11th novel in Anthony Riches' best-selling Empire series takes Marcus Aquila and his most trusted allies to Egypt. After saving the emperor's life in Rome, Marcus and his comrades have been sent across the sea to the wealthy, corrupt Greek metropolis of Aegyptus, Alexandria. An unknown enemy has slaughtered the garrison of the empire's last outpost before its border with the mysterious kingdom of Kush. Caravans can no longer reach the crucial Red Sea port of Berenike, from which the riches of the East flow towards Rome.

In the summer of 1885, three Frenchmen arrived in London for a few days' intellectual shopping: a prince, a count, and a commoner with an Italian name. In time, each of these men would achieve a certain level of renown, but who were they then and what was the significance of their sojourn to England? Answering these questions, Julian Barnes unfurls the stories of their lives which play out against the backdrop of the Belle Epoque in Paris. Our guide through this world is Samuel Pozzi, the society doctor, free-thinker, and man of science with a famously complicated private life....

It is a story like no other: an epic of endurance against destruction, of creativity in oppression, joy amidst grief, the affirmation of life against the steepest of odds. It spans the millennia and the continents - from India to Andalusia and from the bazaars of Cairo to the streets of Oxford. It takes you to unimagined places: to a Jewish kingdom in the mountains of southern Arabia; a Syrian synagogue glowing with radiant wall paintings; the palm groves of the Jewish dead in the Roman catacombs.

I'll shoot a policeman every day until you arrest the murderer of Hanneke Sloet. Shortly after the South African Police Services receive this threatening email, a policeman is shot by a sniper and recovering alcoholic Benny Griessel is ordered to reopen the Sloet case. Hanneke Sloet was a sensual and ambitious lawyer. At the time of her murder she was working on one of the biggest Black Empowerment deals in South African history. She was found dead in her luxury Cape Town apartment.

Gerald Warbow wants nothing more than to enjoy, as his grey hairs grow, to enjoy his life as a landowner, father and grandfather but King Edward 1st needs his master archer and even though the Scots had been defeated at Dunbar, Warbow and his men go off to Flanders to fight the French. When Sir Andrew Murray and William Wallace inflict a humiliating defeat on the Earl of Surry at Stirling Bridge then Gerald Warbow is sent to begin the war that will see the Scottish and English armies clash at Falkirk.

Unfolding in 1952 South Africa, A Beautiful Place to Die is a riveting international mystery that flows from the pen of author Malla Nunn. Police officer Emmanuel Cooper is dispatched to a remote town after a police captain is found murdered in a creek. Even though Cooper judges the crime open and shut, the government's feared Special Branch is summoned, making for an intrigue that will titillate any mystery fan.

Late one night, outside Stockholm, Mikael Kohler-Frost is found wandering. Thirteen years earlier he went missing along with his younger sister. They were long thought to have been victims of Sweden's most notorious serial killer, Jurek Walter, now serving a life sentence in a maximum security psychiatric hospital. Now Mikael tells the police that his sister is still alive and being held by someone he knows only as the Sandman.

Nietzsche was one of the most revolutionary thinkers in Western philosophy and Thus Spoke Zarathustra remains his most influential work. It describes how the ancient Persian prophet Zarathustra descends from his solitude in the mountains to tell the world that God is dead and that the Superman, the human embodiment of divinity, is his successor. With blazing intensity, Nietzsche argues that the meaning of existence is not to be found in religious pieties or meek submission, but in an all-powerful life force: passionate, chaotic and free.

Set in the years before the Battle of Hastings, the story follows the trials and tribulations of Aelfraed, a young boy who aspires to be a warrior. When his uncle, Aethelward, takes him to join the warriors of Harold Godwinson, his life is irrevocably changed. Fighting the Welsh brings him great honour and when he saves the life of Edward the Confessor, he becomes a man of great reputation. The novel culminates in the battle of Stamford Bridge when the Housecarls defeated the last of the Vikings, Harald Hadrada.

Rebirth represents a new chapter in the history of the Salamanders. The Sixth Company set out for Heletine, where Brother-Captain Drakgaard's warriors will face the might of the Black Legion in a battle. But there is more to this Promethean War than conquest, and only as the conflict grinds on are the true motives of the enemy revealed....

Roger Scruton is a polymath. He has written authoritatively on a huge range of subjects from the environment to wine, from cosmology to the Middle East. He is also an accomplished musician (organ and piano) and a composer of works including an opera and a song cycle. This is Scruton’s second major work on music for Bloomsbury - the first being Understanding Music (Continuum, 2009).

A gripping new Benny Griessel thriller from one of the world's finest crime writers. When Captain Benny Griessel is called in to investigate a multiple homicide, it pushes him close to his breaking point. A former friend and detective colleague has shot his wife and two daughters then killed himself. Benny wants out - out of his job, his home, and his relationship with his singer girlfriend, Alexa. He moves into a hotel and starts drinking again.

A new civil war has begun: with the emperor Pertinax's murder Marcus and his protector Scaurus have escaped Rome, seeking sanctuary for their familia in the East. But they are soon pressed back into service by Septimius Severus, the ruthless commander who has seized the imperial capital and who holds the military balance of power over his two rivals. Niger, the would-be emperor in the East is on the march with six legions, and Scaurus's legion is ordered to Thrace as a sacrificial advance guard, tasked with delaying them. Whatever the cost.

Police discover the lifeless body of a young woman on an abandoned yacht. The next day, a man is found hanging in his apartment. When Detectives Joona Linna and Saga Bauer uncover a surprising connection between the two deaths, they realize they are up against a brutal killer and a ruthless business tycoon who preys on his victims’ worst nightmares to achieve his sinister ends.

Bennie Griessel may be losing his battle with alcohol, but he still knows enough to head up the police team tracking "Artemis", a vigilante killer who targets child murderers.

The killer is, in fact, Thobela Mpayipheli, a former freedom fighter robbed of everything by the murder of his son. And when Griessel's daughter is kidnapped, his world and Thobela's converge towards a devastating climax.

In the enthralling third volume of Empire, Anthony Riches takes the legions deep into north Britannia, where the survivors of the rebellion still hope for revenge.The Romans have vanquished the rebel alliance, leaving Calgus, Lord of the Northern Tribes, the prisoner of the chieftains he once led.But the new Roman leader will not let them rest. He forms an audacious plan to capture Dinpaladyr, the Selgovaes' fortress of spears, and return it to the hands of a trusted ally.