Download or read book The Man with the Baltic Stare written by James Church and published by Macmillan + ORM. This book was released on 2010-08-17 with total page 286 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From James Church, the author of the critically acclaimed Inspector O series, comes The Man with the Baltic Stare--another riveting novel set in the mysterious world of North Korea Autumn brings unwelcome news to Inspector O: he has been wrenched from retirement and ordered back to Pyongyang for a final assignment. The two Koreas, he learns, are now cooperating—very quietly—to maintain stability in the North. Stability requires that Inspector O lead an investigation into a crime of passion committed by the young man who has been selected as the best possible leader of a transition government. O is instructed to make sure that the case goes away. Remnants of the old regime, foreign powers, rival gangs—all want a piece of the action, and all make it clear that if O values his life, he will not get in their way. O isn't sure where his loyalties lie, and he doesn't have much time to figure out whether ‘tis better to be noble or be dead.
Download or read book The Man with the Baltic Stare written by James Church and published by Minotaur Books. This book was released on 2010-08-17 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the author of the critically acclaimed Inspector O series comes another riveting novel set in the mysterious world of North Korea Autumn brings unwelcome news to Inspector O: he has been wrenched from retirement and ordered back to Pyongyang for a final assignment. The two Koreas, he learns, are now cooperating—very quietly—to maintain stability in the North. Stability requires that Inspector O lead an investigation into a crime of passion committed by the young man who has been selected as the best possible leader of a transition government. O is instructed to make sure that the case goes away. Remnants of the old regime, foreign powers, rival gangs—all want a piece of the action, and all make it clear that if O values his life, he will not get in their way. O isn’t sure where his loyalties lie, and he doesn’t have much time to figure out whether ‘tis better to be noble or be dead.
Download or read book Hidden Moon written by James Church and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2008-10-28 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Inspector O returns from a mission abroad to find that there has been a bank robbery--the first ever in Pyongyang--and his new police commander wants action. Set in North Korea, this follow-up to "A Corpse in the Koryo" takes readers into an unfamiliar, perplexing universe.
Download or read book A Corpse in the Koryo written by James Church and published by Macmillan + ORM. This book was released on 2006-10-17 with total page 294 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Against the backdrop of a totalitarian North Korea, one man unwillingly uncovers the truth behind series of murders, and wagers his life in the process. Sit on a quiet hillside at dawn among the wildflowers; take a picture of a car coming up a deserted highway from the south. Simple orders for Inspector O, until he realizes they have led him far, far off his department's turf and into a maelstrom of betrayal and death. North Korea's leaders are desperate to hunt down and eliminate anyone who knows too much about a series of decades-old kidnappings and murders---and Inspector O discovers too late he has been sent into the chaos. This is a world where nothing works as it should, where the crimes of the past haunt the present, and where even the shadows are real. A corpse in Pyongyang's main hotel---the Koryo---pulls Inspector O into a confrontation of bad choices between the devils he knows and those he doesn't want to meet. A blue button on the floor of a hotel closet, an ice blue Finnish lake, and desperate efforts by the North Korean leadership set Inspector O on a journey to the edge of a reality he almost can't survive. Like Philip Kerr's Berlin Noir trilogy and the Inspector Arkady Renko novels, A Corpse in the Koryo introduces another unfamiliar world, a perplexing universe seemingly so alien that the rules are an enigma to the reader and even, sometimes, to Inspector O. Author James Church weaves a story with beautifully spare prose and layered descriptions of a country and a people he knows by heart after decades as an intelligence officer. This is a chilling portrayal that, in the end, leaves us wondering if what at first seemed unknowable may simply be too familiar for comfort.
Download or read book A Drop of Chinese Blood written by James Church and published by Macmillan + ORM. This book was released on 2012-11-13 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: James Church's Inspector O novels have been hailed as "crackling good" (The Washington Post) and "tremendously clever" (Tampa Tribune), while Church himself has been embraced by critics as "the equal of le Carré" (Publishers Weekly, starred). Now Church—a former Western intelligence officer who pulls back the curtain on the hidden world of North Korea in a way that no one else can—comes roaring back with a new novel introducing Inspector O's nephew, Major Bing, the long-suffering chief of the Chinese Ministry of State Security operations on the border with North Korea. The last place Bing expected to find the stunningly beautiful Madame Fang—a woman Headquarters wants closely watched—was on his front doorstep. Then, as suddenly as she shows up, Madame Fang mysteriously disappears across the river into North Korea, leaving in her wake both consternation and a highly sensitive assignment for Bing to bring back from the North a long missing Chinese security official. Concerned for his nephew's safety, O reluctantly helps him navigate an increasingly complex and deadly maze, one that leads down the twisted byways of O's homeland. In the tradition of Philip Kerr's Berlin Noir trilogy, and the Inspector Arkady Renko novels, A Drop of Chinese Blood presents an unfamiliar world, a perplexing universe where the rules are an enigma to the reader and even, sometimes, to Inspector O. Once again, James Church has crafted a story with beautifully spare prose and layered descriptions of a country and a people he knows by heart.
Download or read book Bamboo and Blood written by James Church and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2010-02-16 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1997 North Korea, Inspector O is working in Pyongyang as the country's nuclear missile program begins to escalate and as the wife of a North Korean diplomat turns up dead in Pakistan under suspicious circumstances.
Download or read book Between Shades of Gray written by Ruta Sepetys and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2011-03-22 with total page 354 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The inspiration for the major motion picture Ashes in the Snow! "Few books are beautifully written, fewer still are important; this novel is both." --The Washington Post From New York Times and international bestseller and Carnegie Medal winner Ruta Sepetys, author of Salt to the Sea, comes a story of loss and of fear -- and ultimately, of survival. A New York Times notable book An international bestseller A Carnegie Medal nominee A William C. Morris Award finalist A Golden Kite Award winner Fifteen-year-old Lina is a Lithuanian girl living an ordinary life -- until Soviet officers invade her home and tear her family apart. Separated from her father and forced onto a crowded train, Lina, her mother, and her young brother make their way to a Siberian work camp, where they are forced to fight for their lives. Lina finds solace in her art, documenting these events by drawing. Risking everything, she imbeds clues in her drawings of their location and secretly passes them along, hoping her drawings will make their way to her father's prison camp. But will strength, love, and hope be enough for Lina and her family to survive? A moving and haunting novel perfect for readers of The Book Thief. Praise for Between Shades of Gray: "Superlative. A hefty emotional punch." --The New York Times Book Review "Heart-wrenching . . . an eye-opening reimagination of a very real tragedy written with grace and heart." --The Los Angeles Times "At once a suspenseful, drama-packed survival story, a romance, and an intricately researched work of historial fiction." --The Wall Street Journal * "Beautifully written and deeply felt . . . An important book that deserves the widest possible readership." --Booklist, starred review “A superlative first novel. A hefty emotional punch.”--The New York Times Book Review “A brilliant story of love and survival.”--Laurie Halse Anderson, bestselling author of Speak and Wintergirls * “Beautifully written and deeply felt…an important book that deserves the widest possible readership.”--Booklist, Starred Review
Download or read book The Smallest Man written by Frances Quinn and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2021-01-07 with total page 339 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: ‘I want you to remember something, Nat. You’re small on the outside. But inside you’re as big as everyone else. You show people that and you won’t go far wrong in life.’ A compelling story perfect for fans of The Doll Factory, The Illumination of Ursula Flight and The Familiars. My name is Nat Davy. Perhaps you’ve heard of me? There was a time when people up and down the land knew my name, though they only ever knew half the story. The year of 1625, it was, when a single shilling changed my life. That shilling got me taken off to London, where they hid me in a pie, of all things, so I could be given as a gift to the new queen of England. They called me the queen’s dwarf, but I was more than that. I was her friend, when she had no one else, and later on, when the people of England turned against their king, it was me who saved her life. When they turned the world upside down, I was there, right at the heart of it, and this is my story. Inspired by a true story, and spanning two decades that changed England for ever, The Smallest Man is a heartwarming tale about being different, but not letting it hold you back. About being brave enough to take a chance, even if the odds aren’t good. And about how, when everything else is falling apart, true friendship holds people together. Praise for The Smallest Man: ‘Nat Davy is so charming that I couldn't bear to put this book down. I loved it’ Louise Hare ‘A perfect fusion of history and invention… Nat’s wit and humour make the poignancy of his story all the more powerful’ Beth Morrey 'What a page-turner! A timely tale celebrating courage, determination and friendship' Anita Frank ‘A perfectly formed masterpiece’ C.S. Quinn ‘I loved this book - a fascinating tale of extraordinary accomplishment, and a story about how anything is possible and how love has always been a beacon of hope’ Phillip Schofield 'I found myself rooting for the Smallest Man in England from the very first page' Sonia Velton ‘A beautiful, heartwarming tale, weaving history and fiction intricately and seamlessly… I loved this book’ Louise Fein ‘This book took me on an epic journey with a character that will always have a special place in my heart’ Emma Cooper ‘An engaging, compelling, thought-provoking story of a life less ordinary’ Caroline Scott ‘A beguiling and well-written tale’ Ellen Alpsten ‘I absolutely fell for the book’s narrator: an ebullient character whose voice and world view I adored’ Polly Crosby
Download or read book Mirage Men written by Mark Pilkington and published by Constable. This book was released on 2010-07-29 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Seeking the truth about UFOs in America, Mark Pilkington and John Lundberg uncover a 60 year-old story stranger than any conspiracy thriller. Through the fascinating account of their quest Mark Pilkington reveals the long history of UFOria and its parallels in little known tales from the murky worlds of espionage, psychological warfare and advanced military technology. Along the way he discovers that the truth about flying saucers is stranger and more complex than either the ufologists or debunkers would have us believe. As he crossed the US meeting intelligence agents, disinformation specialists and UFO hunters Pilkington was confronted with a dizzying array of ever more outrageous claims and counter claims. As a result he began to suspect that, instead of covering up stories of crashed flying saucers, alien contacts and secret underground bases, the US intelligence agencies had actually been promoting them all along. Meanwhile he has to deal with his own uncertainties, the suspicions of the UFO community and a partner who is starting to believe that conspiracy theorists might be right after all. With a fresh, funny and objective approach, Pilkington is the ideal guide to steer us through these strange territories, where nothing is quite as it seems and reality is just a matter of managing perceptions.
Download or read book The Richest Man Who Ever Lived written by Greg Steinmetz and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2015-08-04 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “A colorful introduction to one of the most influential businessmen in history” (The New York Times Book Review), Jacob Fugger—the Renaissance banker “who wrote the playbook for everyone who keeps score with money” (Bryan Burrough, author of Days of Rage). In the days when Columbus sailed the ocean and Da Vinci painted the Mona Lisa, a German banker named Jacob Fugger became the richest man in history. Fugger lived in Germany at the turn of the sixteenth century, the grandson of a peasant. By the time he died, his fortune amounted to nearly two percent of European GDP. In an era when kings had unlimited power, Fugger dared to stare down heads of state and ask them to pay back their loans—with interest. It was this coolness and self-assurance, along with his inexhaustible ambition, that made him not only the richest man ever, but a force of history as well. Before Fugger came along it was illegal under church law to charge interest on loans, but he got the Pope to change that. He also helped trigger the Reformation and likely funded Magellan’s circumnavigation of the globe. His creation of a news service gave him an information edge over his rivals and customers and earned Fugger a footnote in the history of journalism. And he took Austria’s Habsburg family from being second-tier sovereigns to rulers of the first empire where the sun never set. “Enjoyable…readable and fast-paced” (The Wall Street Journal), The Richest Man Who Ever Lived is more than a tale about the most influential businessman of all time. It is a story about palace intrigue, knights in battle, family tragedy and triumph, and a violent clash between the one percent and everybody else. “The tale of Fugger’s aspiration, ruthlessness, and greed is riveting” (The Economist).
Download or read book Black Flower written by Young-ha Kim and published by HMH. This book was released on 2012-10-30 with total page 317 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1904, a group of Koreans seeks a new life in Mexico, in this “powerful, sweeping” novel based on a little-known chapter in history (List Magazine). In 1904, facing war and the loss of their nation, more than a thousand Koreans leave their homes for the promise of land in unknown Mexico. After a long sea voyage, these emigrants—thieves and royals, priests and soldiers, orphans and families—discover that they have been sold into indentured servitude. Aboard the ship, the orphan Ijeong falls in love with a nobleman’s daughter. When the hacendados claim their laborers and the two are separated, he vows to find her. But after years of working in the punishing heat of the henequen fields, the Koreans are caught in the midst of a Mexican revolution . . . A tale of star-crossed love, political turmoil, and the dangers of seeking freedom in a new world—from an author who is “at the leading edge of a new breed of South Korean writers”—Black Flower is an epic story based on a little-known moment in history (Philadelphia City Paper). “‘Can a nation disappear forever?’ . . . [In] a tale of collective loss, political revolution and the individual quest for self-determination . . . Kim brings us the souls caught up on the ground of this larger drama.” —Minneapolis Star-Tribune “Spare and beautiful.” —Publishers Weekly, starred review “Readers who remember the historical fiction of Thomas B. Costain, Zoe Oldenbourg [sic] and Anya Seton will appreciate [Kim’s] extensive research and empathic imagination.” —Kirkus Reviews
Download or read book What the Cat Saw written by Carolyn Hart and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2012-10-02 with total page 295 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: New York Times bestselling author Carolyn Hart presents the story of a woman with a curious ability that drops her headfirst into a world of intrigue and murder. Since her fiancé’s death, Nela Farley has been plagued by a sixth sense: She understands the thoughts of cats. In desperate need of a distraction, Nela agrees to substitute for her sister, Chloe, at her job for a charitable foundation. Chloe has even arranged a place for her sister to stay. But when Nela encounters the previous tenant’s cat, she gets a flash of thought: “...dead and gone...She loved me...skateboard on the step...” Nela wants to ignore what the cat saw, but the idea that the death of former tenant Marian Grant wasn’t an accident is something she can’t ignore. And when a detective becomes suspicious of Nela’s sister and a second murder occurs, Nela realizes she’ll have to make the most of her unwanted ability before she meets her own untimely end...
Download or read book The End and the Beginning written by Hermynia Zur Mühlen and published by Open Book Publishers. This book was released on 2010 with total page 302 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: First published in Germany in 1929, The End and the Beginning is a lively personal memoir of a vanished world and of a rebellious, high-spirited young woman's struggle to achieve independence. Born in 1883 into a distinguished and wealthy aristocratic family of the old Austro-Hungarian Empire, Hermynia Zur Muhlen spent much of her childhood travelling in Europe and North Africa with her diplomat father. After five years on her German husband's estate in czarist Russia she broke with both her family and her husband and set out on a precarious career as a professional writer committed to socialism. Besides translating many leading contemporary authors, notably Upton Sinclair, into German, she herself published an impressive number of politically engaged novels, detective stories, short stories, and children's fairy tales. Because of her outspoken opposition to National Socialism, she had to flee her native Austria in 1938 and seek refuge in England, where she died, virtually penniless, in 1951. This revised and corrected translation of Zur Muhlen's memoir - with extensive notes and an essay on the author by Lionel Gossman - will appeal especially to readers interested in women's history, the Central European aristocratic world that came to an end with the First World War, and the culture and politics of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
Download or read book The Glass Wall written by Max Egremont and published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. This book was released on 2022-02-08 with total page 294 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Max Egremont, author of Some Desperate Glory, tells stories from the "Glass Wall" between Europe and Asia. Few countries have suffered more from the convulsions and bloodshed of twentieth-century Europe than those in the eastern Baltic region. Caught between the giants of Germany and Russia, on a route across which armies surged or retreated, small nations like Latvia and Estonia were for centuries the subjects of conquests and domination as foreign colonizers claimed control of the territory and its inhabitants, along with their religion, government, and culture. The Glass Wall features an extraordinary cast of characters—contemporary and historical, foreign and indigenous—who have lived and fought in the Baltic, western Europe’s easternmost stronghold. Too often the destiny of this region has seemed to be to serve as the front line in other people’s wars. By telling the stories of warriors and victims, of philosophers and barons, of poets and artists, of rebels and emperors, and of others who lived through years of turmoil and violence, Max Egremont sets forth a brilliant account of a long-overlooked region, on a frontier whose limits may still be in doubt.
Download or read book Leaving Berlin written by Joseph Kanon and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2015-03-03 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: New York Times Notable Book * Named one of NPR and Wall Street Journal's Best Books of the Year * The acclaimed author of The Good German “deftly captures the ambience” (The New York Times Book Review) of postwar East Berlin in his “thought-provoking, pulse-pounding” (Wall Street Journal) New York Times bestseller—a sweeping spy thriller about a city caught between political idealism and the harsh realities of Soviet occupation. Berlin, 1948. Almost four years after the war’s end, the city is still in ruins, a physical wasteland and a political symbol about to rupture. In the West, a defiant, blockaded city is barely surviving on airlifted supplies; in the East, the heady early days of political reconstruction are being undermined by the murky compromises of the Cold War. Espionage, like the black market, is a fact of life. Even culture has become a battleground, with German intellectuals being lured back from exile to add credibility to the competing sectors. Alex Meier, a young Jewish writer, fled the Nazis for America before the war. But the politics of his youth have now put him in the crosshairs of the McCarthy witch-hunts. Faced with deportation and the loss of his family, he makes a desperate bargain with the fledgling CIA: he will earn his way back to America by acting as their agent in his native Berlin. But almost from the start things go fatally wrong. A kidnapping misfires, an East German agent is killed, and Alex finds himself a wanted man. Worse, he discovers his real assignment—to spy on the woman he left behind, the only woman he has ever loved. Changing sides in Berlin is as easy as crossing a sector border. But where do we draw the lines of our moral boundaries? At betrayal? Survival? Murder? Joseph Kanon’s compelling thriller is a love story that brilliantly brings a shadowy period of history vividly to life.
Download or read book The Man from Berlin written by Luke McCallin and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2013-07-02 with total page 450 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Amidst the chaos of World War II… In a land of brutality and bloodshed… One death can still change everything. In war-torn Yugoslavia, a beautiful young filmmaker and photographer—a veritable hero to her people—and a German officer have been brutally murdered. Assigned to the case is military intelligence officer Captain Gregor Reinhardt. Already haunted by his wartime actions and the mistakes he’s made off the battlefield, he soon finds that his investigation may be more than just a murder—and that the late Yugoslavian heroine may have been much more brilliant—and treacherous—than anyone knew. Maneuvering his way through a minefield of political, military, and personal agendas and vendettas, Reinhardt knows that someone is leaving a trail of dead bodies to cover their tracks. But those bloody tracks may lead Reinhardt to a secret hidden within the ranks of the powerful that they will do anything to keep. And his search for the truth may kill him before he ever finds it.
Download or read book Built on Sand written by Paul Scraton and published by Influx Press. This book was released on 2019-04-25 with total page 190 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Berlin: long-celebrated as a city of artists and outcasts, but also a city of teachers and construction workers. A place of tourists and refugees, and the memories of those exiled and expelled. A city named after marshland; if you dig a hole, you'll soon hit sand. The stories of Berlin are the stories Built on Sand. A wooden town, laid waste by the Thirty Years War that became the metropolis by the Spree that spread out and swallowed villages whole. The city of Rosa Luxemburg and Joseph Roth, of student movements and punks on both sides of the Wall. A place still bearing the scars of National Socialism and the divided city that emerged from the wreckage of war. Built on Sand. centres on the personal geographies of place, and how memory and history live on in the individual and collective imagination. Stories of landscapes and a city both real and imagined; stories of exile and trauma, mythology and folklore; of how the past shapes and distorts our understanding of the present in an age of individualism, gentrification and the rising threat of nativism and far-right populism. Together, these stories offer a portrait of a city three decades on from the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the legacy of that history in a city that was once divided but remains fractured and fragmented.
