Showing results by publisher "-emdashery books-" in Historical

They lied to protect their country. He told the truth to save it. A gripping historical thriller from the bestselling author of Fatherland. January 1895. On a freezing morning in the heart of Paris, an army officer, Georges Picquart, witnesses a convicted spy, Captain Alfred Dreyfus, being publicly humiliated in front of twenty thousand spectators baying ‘Death to the Jew!’ The officer is rewarded with promotion: Picquart is made the French army’s youngest colonel and put in command of ‘the Statistical Section’ - the shadowy intelligence unit that tracked down Dreyfus.

1952, Los Angeles. It is New Year’s Eve, and PI Aloysius Archer is dining with his friend and rising Hollywood actress Liberty Callahan when they’re approached by Eleanor Lamb, a screenwriter who would like to hire him, as she suspects someone is trying to kill her. A visit to Lamb’s Malibu residence leaves Archer knocked unconscious after he stumbles over a dead body in the hallway and Lamb seems to have vanished. With the police now involved in the case, a close friend and colleague of Lamb’s employs Archer to find out what’s happened to the screenwriter.

In 1936, intrepid young Australian journalist Nancy Wake is living in Paris after witnessing firsthand the terror of Hitler’s rise in Europe, firing her resolve to join the fight to defeat the Nazis. When Nancy falls in love with a handsome French industrialist, no sooner has she become Mrs. Henri Fiocca than the Germans invade and Nancy adopts another name, a codename - the first of many.

A grand tournament is about to begin, and the excitement grows as King Edward III joins the festivities at Mablethorpe Castle. Meanwhile, Lady Vivienne Harlowe's past comes back to haunt her, and she will do anything to find answers to the questions that have plagued her for the past seven years regarding her parents' unsolved murders. Meeting the king is nerve-wracking, but he is the only one who might be able to shed light on her nightmarish quandary.

On the brink of defeat, Hitler commissioned 10,000 V2s - ballistic rockets that carried a one-ton warhead at three times the speed of sound, which he believed would win the war. Dr Rudi Graf who, along with his friend Werner von Braun, had once dreamt of sending a rocket to the moon, now finds himself in November 1944 in a bleak seaside town in Occupied Holland, launching V2s against London. No one understands the volatile, deadly machine better than Graf, but his disillusionment with the war leads to him being investigated for sabotage.

In the city of Lahun, Hui lives an enchanted life. The favoured son of a doting father, and ruler-in-waiting of the great city, his fate is set. But behind the beautiful façades a sinister evil is plotting. Craving power and embittered by jealousy, Hui's stepmother, the great sorceress Isetnofret, and Hui's own brother Qen, orchestrate the downfall of Hui's father, condemning Hui and seizing power in the city.

Set in the turbulent times of 12th century England where civil war, famine, religious strife, and battles over royal succession tore lives and families apart, The Pillars of the Earth tells the story of the building of a magnificent cathedral. Against this richly imagined backdrop, filled with intrigue and treachery, Ken Follett draws the reader irresistibly into a wonderful epic of family drama, violent conflict, and unswerving ambition.

Cleo’s holiday with her family to the seaside resort town of Brighton is everything she hoped it would be…until she receives a blackmail note. The blackmailer demands Cleo help her or a story revealing Cleo’s investigating will appear in the newspaper. With her uncle warning her to keep her detecting activities private, Cleo agrees to meet the blackmailer when they return to London. But when the woman is seen getting on the train but not off, Cleo grows concerned.

The Romans invaded Britannia in AD 43 confident of victory. They swept through a divided and ill-equipped enemy, scattered across tough terrain. But one man was not prepared to surrender. Caratacus - quick-witted youngest son of a a tribal king - had been trained from birth to be a warrior of power and grit. Sent to be schooled by the Druids in his boyhood, his training meant that an already strong and cunning prince returned to his father's kingdom as a war machine.

Henry "Hal" Courtney has always lived at sea. He watched his own father executed during the Anglo-Dutch naval war, and spent his entire young adulthood avenging his father's death. Now a truce has been made between the warring countries and Hal is captain of his own ship - the Golden Bough. From the slave markets of Zanzibar to the pirate-riddled waters of the Indian Ocean, Hal leads his crew in and out of the waves of danger. But he soon realizes that just because the war is over, does not mean the battle is won, and the more a man achieves, the more he has to lose.

It is 1906, and in New York City, the Italian crime group known as the Black Hand is on a spree: kidnapping, extortion, arson. Detective Isaac Bell of the Van Dorn Agency is hired to form a special Black Hand Squad, but the gangsters appear to be everywhere - so much so that Bell begins to wonder if there are imitators, criminals using the name for the terror effect.

There was a time when Cicero held Caesar’s life in the palm of his hand. But now Caesar is the dominant figure, and Cicero’s life is in ruins. Exiled, separated from his wife and children, his possessions confiscated, his life constantly in danger, Cicero is tormented by the knowledge that he has sacrificed power for the sake of his principles. His comeback requires wit, skill and courage - and, for a brief and glorious period, the legendary orator is once more the supreme senator in Rome.

Preservation, based on the true story of the wreck of the Sydney Cove, sees master storyteller Jock Serong turn his talents to historical narrative. On a beach not far from the isolated settlement of Sydney in 1797, a fishing boat picks up three shipwreck survivors, distressed and terribly injured. They have walked hundreds of miles across a landscape whose features - and inhabitants - they have no way of comprehending. They have lost 14 companions along the way. Their accounts of the ordeal are evasive.

Germany, late summer 1945. The war is over, but the country is in ruins. Millions of refugees and holocaust survivors strive to rebuild their lives in displaced persons camps. Millions of German soldiers and SS men are held captive in primitive conditions in open-air detention centres. Everywhere, civilians are desperate for food and shelter. No one admits to having voted Nazi, yet many are unrepentant. Adolf Hitler is said to have killed himself in his Berlin bunker. But no body was found - and many people believe he is alive.

A desolate wasteland. A mission gone wrong. An impossible goal. Roman scout, Silus, is deep behind enemy lines in Caledonia. As he spies on a raiding party, he is abruptly discovered by an enemy chief and his son. Mounting a one-man ambush, everything quickly goes wrong and Silus must run for his life, the head of the enemy leader in his hands. Little does he know the price he will pay... As Silus is inducted into the Arcani, an elite faction of assassins and spies, he must return to Caledonia and risk everything in the service of his Caesar.

George Smiley, now acting head of the Circus, must rebuild its shattered reputation after one of the biggest betrayals in its history. Using the talents of journalist and occasional spy Jerry Westerby, Smiley launches a risky operation uncovering a Russian money-laundering scheme in the Far East. His aim: revenge on Karla, head of Moscow Centre and the architect of all his troubles.

Altaïr embarks on a formidable mission - one that takes him throughout the Holy Land and shows him the true meaning of the Assassin's Creed. To demonstrate his commitment, Altaïr must defeat nine deadly enemies, including Templar leader Robert de Sablé. Here, for the first time, Niccolò Polo, father of Marco, shares Altaïr's remarkable story: his ongoing battle with the Templar conspiracy; a family life that is as tragic as it is shocking; the betrayal of an old friend; and a journey that will ultimately change the course of history.

Fulvia is the daughter of a wealthy but unimportant Roman family. Raised in the countryside, she longs for a life of intrigue and influence. When her father dies and her inheritance is threatened, Fulvia makes her way to the city of Rome to secure her future. There she marries a young aristocrat named Clodius, who is more interested in partying with his hedonistic friends than politics. Fulvia is drawn into their world of debauchery, and learns just how precarious the balance of power in the Republic is.

Summer, 1545. England is at war. Henry VIII's invasion of France has gone badly wrong, and a massive French fleet is preparing to sail across the Channel . . .Meanwhile, Matthew Shardlake is given an intriguing legal case by an old servant of Queen Catherine Parr. Asked to investigate claims of ‘monstrous wrongs' committed against his young ward, Hugh Curteys, by Sir Nicholas Hobbey, Shardlake and his assistant Barak journey to Portsmouth.

At seventeen, Lenora Hope hung her sister with a rope. Now reduced to a schoolyard chant, the Hope family murders shocked the Maine coast one bloody night in 1929. While most people assume seventeen-year-old Lenora was responsible, the police were never able to prove it. Other than her denial after the killings, she has never spoken publicly about that night, nor has she set foot outside Hope's End, the cliffside mansion where the massacre occurred.