The narrator, Samson Young, enters the Black Cross, a thoroughly undesirable public house, and finds the main players of his drama assembled, just waiting to begin. It's a gift of a story from real life... all Samson has to do is to write it as it happens.

Jerry White's London in the Eighteenth Century is an unrivalled, panoramic account of the city's dramatic century of rebirth by its leading expert. But the century that followed was a period of vigorous expansion, of scientific and artistic genius, of blossoming reason, civility, elegance and manners.

Culver has been called off the Korean War reserve list to take part in manoeuvres in South Carolina. Their colonel orders his men to endure a 36-mile forced march to inculcate discipline and this is a searing account of this ferocious ordeal and of the two officers who dare to resist.

Great Aunt Puddequet was reputed to be enormously wealthy. It was also a tradition in the family that she was extraordinarily mean. So when the malicious old bird summons her grand-nephews to perform in a games tournament in order to secure their inheritances, they gloomily oblige. Before long, the country house games are interrupted by murder.

Bertram was not a believer in luck or superstition. An unambitious man, he looks for a quiet life. But then he comes to the attention of Dreuther, his boss, who changes Bertram's plans and packs him off to Monte Carlo. Once there, Bertram develops a betting system and his troubles begin.

Gradually disclosing an entire panorama of human relationship and motive, this novel is a comment on the law and the press, the labyrinth of social truth and the relentless collision of fact and fiction.

Flying out of India, a light aircraft is hi-jacked and flown into the high Tibetan Himalayas. The passengers on board anxiously await their fate, among them Conway, a talented British consul. But on landing they are unexpectedly conducted to a remote valley, a legendary paradise of peace and beauty, known as Shangri-La. Have they been kidnapped?

Did you know that the Japanese have a word to express the way sunlight filters through the leaves of trees? Or, that there's a Swedish word that means a traveller's particular sense of anticipation before a trip? This book includes a collection full of surprises that will make you savour the elusive, untranslatable words that make up a language.