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Paris, 1900. Aileen Bowman arrives at the Exposition Universelle, where all the world has gathered to witness the birth of modernity. A journalist in her mid-thirties, unmarried and fiercely independent, she has been sent to cover the Exposition for the New York Tribune, and her arrival soon creates a scandal in the city of lights. But it seems the life she left behind on the distant Nevada plains may have followed her across the Atlantic, and before long Aileen finds herself caught in a deadly tussle between the old world and the new. The final volume in Antonin Varenne's epic historical trilogy, The Canvas of the World takes us to heart of Paris, from the emerging metropolis to the neighbourhood brothels, in a novel driven by passion and a yearning for freedom. Translated from the French by Sam Taylor
"We owe you our lives, Sergeant, but you are our worst nightmare . . ." Burma, 1852. Sergeant Arthur Bowman, a sergeant in the East India Company, is sent on a secret mission during the Second Anglo-Burmese War. But the expedition is foiled - his men are captured and tortured. Throughout their ordeal, a single word becomes Bowman's mantra, a word that will stiffen their powers of endurance in the face of unimaginable suffering: "Survival". But for all that, only a handful escape with their lives. Some years later in London, battling his ghosts through a haze of alcohol and opium, Bowman discovers a mutilated corpse in a sewer. The victim appears to have been subjected to the same torments as...
It's as if he's being mocked from beyond the grave. When John Nichols arrives to identify the body of an old friend, he is immediately caught up in the detritus of Alan Musgrave's life, the side of Paris the tourists don't see, where everyone has a past but very few count on a future. But what can he expect from a man who bled to death in his own excruciating S&M stage show? Now there's a maverick police lieutenant on the prowl who thinks that Musgrave's suicide was murder. Guérin might not look like much, but he's one of the few honest officers on the force. As the horrific extent of police abuse is revealed, the race is on to find the link between a slew of recent suicides - and the key to it is buried deep in Nichols's past. Bed of Nails does for Paris what James Ellroy did for vintage America, shining a light as never before on the seedy underbelly of La Ville-Luminère.
2008. George 'The Wall' Crozat has racked up thirty-eight victories (twenty-three of them by knock-out), eight defeats, and an empty bank account. Finally ready to hang up the gloves and focus on his career as a police officer, his chief concern is how to fund his prostitution habit. When a shady bouncer offers him a photograph, an address and a chance to finally turn a profit with his fists, the temptation is irresistible. Before long the money is flowing, but Crozat has unknowingly become a pawn in a very dangerous game. Powerful forces are using his brutality to keep their own secrets, and Crozat teeters on the precipice of an abyss that stretches fifty years into the past, to the darkest chapter of France's colonial history. Switching effortlessly between past and present, and drawing on his own father's experience of the Algerian War, Antonin Varenne's darkly personal thriller shines a light on corruption, torture, conspiracy and revenge.
1871. Pete Ferguson is a wanted man. An army deserter, hunted for murder in Oregon, not to mention theft and arson in Nebraska. Taking the name of Billy Webb, he is hired by bison hunters, but leaves after a bloody dispute. He then takes the Comancheros Road, which he follows to Mexico, and then to Guatemala . . . Whatever he does, wherever he goes, Pete is a magnet for trouble and seems incapable of making the right choices. The violence that follows him keeps him away from those he loves: his brother Oliver, still on the Fitzpatrick ranch with Aileen, Alexandra and Arthur Bowman. It is a woman who will change his destiny, an Indigenous woman driven out of her lands. To save her, Ferguson will sabotage an attempted coup d'état and together, they will go to the Equator that has become Ferguson's grail, and where the malevolent forces governing this world must finally be defeated.
In a warehouse in Santiago, three aging friends meet and await the arrival of a man from their past. Once militant supporters of Salvador Allende, they have grown disillusioned in the three and a half decades since his assassination. Their city has changed under Pinochet, and so have they: heart troubles, thinning hair, a few pounds too many around the waist; there is little left to connect them with their glory days. But now, the three friends have been called together at the behest of the anarchist, Pedro Nolasco, a.k.a. The Shadow, to carry out one final revolutionary gesture. But Lucho, Lolo and Cacho wait in vain; the sudden and gruesome death of The Shadow leaves them without a leader. Now they must turn to Coco Aravena, the most reckless of their former comrades. After years of playing second fiddle, this is the bumbling Coco's chance to show them what he is capable of.
According to Jewish scripture, there are thirty-six righteous people on earth. Without them, humanity would perish. But the thirty-six do not know that they are the chosen ones. In Beijing, a monk collapses in his chamber. A fiery mark has spread across his back and down his spine. In Mumbai, a man who served the poor dies suddenly. His body shows the same mark. Similar deaths are reported in cities around the world - the victims all humanitarians, all with the same death mark. In Copenhagen, it falls to veteran detective Niels Bentzon to investigate. He is told to find eight 'good people' of Denmark and warn them of this threat. But Bentzon is trained to see the worst in people and he becom...
An intimate reflection on culture and tradition, creativity and power, that draws on a lifetime’s commitment to aesthetic encounter The playwright, poet, essayist, novelist, and Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka is also a longtime art collector. This book of essays offers a glimpse into the motivations of the collector, as well as a highly personal look at the politics of aesthetics and collecting. Detailing moments of first encounter with objects that drew him in and continue to affect him, Soyinka describes a world of mortals, muses, and deities that imbue the artworks with history and meaning. Beyond Aesthetics is a passionate discussion of the role of identity, tradition, and originality in making, collecting, and exhibiting African art today. Soyinka considers objects that have stirred controversy, and he decries dogmatic efforts—whether colonial or religious—to suppress Africa’s artistic traditions. By turns poetic, provocative, and humorous, Soyinka affirms the power of collecting to reclaim tradition. He urges African artists, filmmakers, collectors, and curators to engage with their aesthetic and cultural histories.
India'S First Ever Sff (Science Fiction/Fantasy) Genre Novel In English The Simoqin Prophecies Marks The Debut Of An Assured New Voice. Written With Consummate Ease And Brimming With Wit And Allusion, It Is At Once Classic Sff And Subtle Spoof, Featuring Scantily Clad Centauresses, Flying Carpets, Pink Trolls, Belly Dancers And Homicidal Rabbits. Monty Python Meets The Ramayana, Alice In Wonderland Meets The Lord Of The Rings And Robin Hood Meets The Arabian Nights In This Novel A Breathtaking Ride Through A World Peopled By Different Races And Cultures From Mythology And History. The Prophecies Foretell The Reawakening Of The Terrible Rakshas, Danh-Gem, And The Arrival Of A Hero To Face Him...
A masterpiece of literary craft and concision; sparse, beautiful and hugely affecting - Daily Mail Since the liberation of the Netherlands, Emma Verweij has been living in Rotterdam, in a street which became a stronghold of friendships for its inhabitants during the Second World War. She marries Bruno, they have two sons, and she determines to block out the years she spent in Nazi Berlin during the war, with her first husband Carl. But now, ninety-six years old and on the eve of her death, long- forgotten memories crowd again into her consciousness, flashbacks of happier years, and the tragedy of the war, of Carl, of her father, and of the friends she has lost. In The Longest Night, his impressive, reflective new novel after News from Berlin, Otto de Kat deftly distils momentous events of 20th-century history into the lives of his characters. In Emma, the past and the present coincide in limpid fragments of rare, melancholy beauty. Translated from the Dutch by Laura Watkinson