Download or read book The Corridors Of Secrecy AKA Chinese Whispers written by Richard Hernaman Allen and published by Lulu.com. This book was released on 2018-05-19 with total page 275 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Nick Storey is asked to carry out a review of Cabinet Office security procedures, but learns from a contact in MI6 that the real purpose is to identify a mole leaking secrets to the Chinese. Making slow progress because of the defensive attitudes by Cabinet Office staff, he is diverted by a botched Investigation Division operation in Liverpool against a Chinese smuggling gang. Sorting that out gives him an idea how the microfilms with leaked secrets are sent to Hong Kong. A Chinese meal with the Cabinet Office "foo-yung club" in Soho, gives Rosemary the chance to spot how the microfilm is handed over. Discrepancies between what Cabinet Office staff and security guards say and the discovery of a secret door used by the "Cabinet Office ghost" narrows the field of suspects and a C&E operation nets the courier with the microfilm. What happens next makes a corkscrew look straight. "The Corridors of Secrecy (aka Chinese Whispers" is the 17th book in a series of detective stories.

Download or read book Old Ghosts written by Richard Hernaman Allen and published by Lulu.com. This book was released on 2018-07-16 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 1985. As the new Collector London Port, Nick Storey inherits a Collection with low morale and weak performance in a declining port. Among the changes he makes, flexible use of staff to massively increase controls at random times, leads to the discovery at Tilbury of large quantities of cash in a mattress and cocaine in furniture destined for a new hotel to be built by an Italian company in the proposed development at Canary Wharf. The company claims no knowledge of the cocaine. Almost immediately the Assistant Collector at Tilbury is brutally murdered. A covert operation to follow a later shipment leads to the death of four smugglers, while trying to flee. As those responsible dive for cover, an old adversary, Kenneth King, emerges from the shadows seeking to persuade Nick to put him in the clear. But exactly who is responsible for shooting up Nick and Rosemary's home with machine guns? "Old Ghosts" is the eighteenth book in a series of detective stores set in HM Customs & Excise.

Download or read book Post And Perfidy written by Richard Hernaman Allen and published by Lulu.com. This book was released on 2020-03-11 with total page 255 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When Nick Storey visits the Overseas Parcels Office (OPO) at the Royal Agricultural Hall, to check whether the Temporary Charge on Imports is being collected, the arrangements look wide open to fraud. After this is confirmed by two postal workers, Nick is threatened by a local trade union official and his thugs. The local C&E manager is sacked after an argument with Post Officer managers about the level of thefts from the OPO. Nick and Rosemary try various means of publicising the frauds, but it's only after she climbs into the back of a warehouse where Nick and she believe the stolen goods are hidden that the evidence for the frauds is found. Even then local managers prevaricate and the postal staff riot. Finally, what cracks the case wide open is crucial evidence which came through the post....of course. "Post and Perfidy" is the twenty-ninth book published in a series of detective stories set mostly in HM Customs & Excise, by Richard Hernaman Allen, a former Commissioner

Download or read book Market Forces written by Richard Hernaman Allen and published by Lulu.com. This book was released on 2019-02-21 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Along with the rest of the Civil Service, Customs & Excise are required by Government to market test some of their activities in competition with private sector firms. As the majority of market tests are in the Outfield, Nick Storey keeps a careful eye on how they are proceeding, especially ones where he believes Collectors may be trying to fiddle the results. He also suspects some of the private sector bidders of collusion. As the results come in, it becomes plain that not just that some bids have been fiddled and there is collusion, but that someone in the Department has leaked details to some of the external competitors. Detailed analysis and Rosemary going under cover in one of the private sector bidders identifies the people doing the leaking. Then the politics takes over, of course. "Market Forces" is the twenty-second book in a series of detective stories set in HM Customs & Excise, by Richard Hernaman Allen, a former Commissioner.

Download or read book Death On The Volga written by Richard Hernaman Allen and published by Lulu.com. This book was released on 2019 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 1996. Nick and Rosemary Storey are enjoying a river cruise from Moscow to St Petersburg when two British passengers from their excursion group are murdered, apparently on return from a visit to Yaroslavl. The cruise line ask them to get statements from relevant British passengers before the ship docks in St Petersburg. Facing a curtain of lies and half-truths, tales of hidden Nazi gold, well-concealed Russian connections and unable to check much of what is said to them, they have to rely on inconsistencies, tweaking the Russian bear's tail and a bear trap to identify both a brutal killer and his paymasters, not without risk to their own lives. "Death on the Volga" is the twenty-seventh book published in a series of detective stories set mostly in HM Customs & Excise, by Richard Hernaman Allen, a former Commissioner

Download or read book Ballad Of A Thin Man written by Richard Hernaman Allen and published by Lulu.com. This book was released on 2018-03-07 with total page 295 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 1984/5. Nick Storey is seconded from Customs & Excise to review DHSS work to tackle benefit fraud. Ministers have received an anonymous letter alleging a large scale fraud involving National Insurance numbers. Nick and Rosemary go undercover in Newcastle as VAT inspectors to follow a trail of evidence linked to a series of companies owned by a Geordie ex-miner, Mick Sutton. As they start to close in, one of the suspects vanishes and appears to have been killed, on Sutton's orders. To avoid a similar fate, Nick and Rosemary corner the weakest link in the chain at Ponteland golf club and try to dismantle a criminal network based on blackmail. "Ballad of a thin man" is the sixteenth book in a series of detective stores set in HM Customs & Excise, by Richard Hernaman Allen, a former Commissioner.

Download or read book Misfits And Miscreants written by Richard Hernaman Allen and published by Lulu.com. This book was released on 2019-11-29 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 1965. Starting work in Customs & Excise HQ in London, Nick Storey comes across some strange people, including a bully and a very tall rude man with a violent friend. He strikes up a friendship with a colleague, who is subsequently stabbed to death in an alley near the Monument. Though the police believe it was a robbery, only his briefcase was taken. Helped by Rosemary and a purloined notebook, Nick comes across a strange brotherhood, based on ancient and arcane wisdom of Balqis, Queen of Sheba. He is also drawn into a plan to catch colleagues receiving illicit payments for the return of temporarily imported cars seized by C&E, which involves Rosemary going undercover. However, sorting these out costs another life and isn't without risk to their lives as well. "Misfits and Miscreants" is the twenty-eighth book published in a series of detective stories set mostly in HM Customs & Excise, by Richard Hernaman Allen, a former Commissioner

Download or read book End Of The Road written by Richard Hernaman Allen and published by Lulu.com. This book was released on 2019-04-23 with total page 295 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 1993. Concerns about former Soviet bloc weapons falling into the wrong hands leads to Nick Storey becoming a member of a Cabinet Office committee and a special committee of the World Customs Organisation (WCO). Having seized harmless ex-Soviet weaponry at Felixstowe, Nick's belief that such materials would be imported into the UK is shaken. Claims made by his Russian opposite number about UK firms engaged in this trade lead to further, more serious seizures. But at a WCO meeting in Berlin, the Russian and his wife seek a private meeting with Nick and Rosemary, but are killed on the way there. Back-ullaging from the murder, Nick is able to identify who is running the smuggling operation, but what is being smuggled takes everyone's breath away. "End of the road" is the twenty-third book in a series of detective stories set in HM Customs & Excise, by Richard Hernaman Allen, a former Commissioner

Download or read book Ghosts In The Machine written by Richard Hernaman Allen and published by Lulu.com. This book was released on 2019 with total page 298 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Just promoted to the Board of Customs & Excise, Nick Storey is asked to help a Metropolitan Police enquiry into illegal arms sales to Morocco. Military hardware for "rockhopper" missiles misdescribed as telephonic equipment and destined for Morocco has been seized at Avonmouth. The exporters claim that they had Ministry of Defence approval, which the Ministry denies. Investigating a series of exports by British arms manufacturers indicates a pattern of implausible exports. The evidence increases after Nick arranges for a large cargo ship to be detained at Southampton. But as the net closes in on those involved in "Operation Ghost Sands", Nick, Rosemary and one of their daughters are targeted and even the outcome smells of rotten fish. "Ghosts in the machine" is the twenty-first book in a series of detective stories set in HM Customs & Excise, by Richard Hernaman Allen, a former Commissioner.

Download or read book It s All Over Now Baby Blue written by Richard Hernaman Allen and published by Lulu.com. This book was released on 2019 with total page 266 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 1994. Customs & Excise staff in Dover find revolting pornography being imported by a Cabinet Minister. Various underhand attempts are made by the Minister to retrieve the porn or get the case heard before a compliant magistrate. But how does this link with the "Hades Club" many of whose members are "the great and the good" and whose initiation rite appears to be to take a woman off the streets and rape her? Nick and Rosemary Storey and colleagues go undercover to obtain evidence, but when the cat is let out of the bag, Nick is menaced by a gunman at a strange hotel in Birmingham where the C&E Board are having a "retreat". If the Minister wishes to save his own skin by outing even more highly-connected people, what are his chances of survival? And why has the centre of Government been so invisible while this was going on? "It's all over now, Baby Blue" is the twenty-fourth book in a series of detective stories set in HM Customs & Excise, by Richard Hernaman Allen, a former Commissioner

Download or read book Eight Miles High written by Richard Hernaman Allen and published by Lulu.com. This book was released on 2018-10-29 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Smugglers of a powerful methamphetamine, nicknamed Òdilithium crystalsÓ, by speedboat and light aircraft kill themselves rather than be caught by Customs. Nick Storey, Collector London Port, identifies patterns of evidence and smuggling routes by small ships and light aircraft, which lead to several dubious businesses in South Essex, a City investment company and a Belgian security firm with antecedents in African mercenary operations. Tracking light aircraft movements to small airfields uncovers smuggled krugerrands and a longstanding feud between Derek Clyne (son of ÒFrank the skinÓ) and a rival, Benny Drew. To pressurise the suspects, Nick gets them together unawares, unwittingly causing a bloody conclusion. But that only serves to provide cover for the real crooks, masterminding a huge fraud. ÒEight Miles highÓ is the twentieth book in a series of detective stories set in HM Customs & Excise, by Richard Hernaman Allen, a former Commissioner.

Download or read book Medicine Man written by Richard Hernaman Allen and published by Lulu.com. This book was released on 2018-09-20 with total page 293 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Despite Nick StoreyÕs reservations, London Port Collection are ÒtwinnedÓ with the port of Bordeaux in an EEC project. NickÕs counterpart in Bordeaux is equally suspicious, but examination of their trade reveals a lot of medicines and drugs being exported from London to Bordeaux for an international charity called ÔSantZ MondialeÕ, but also many which are supposedly exported to Bilbao which invariably get diverted to Bordeaux. As Nick and his colleagues dig deeper, there seems to be a counterpart to these exports with both import and exports of similar medicines and drugs by a series of linked companies with shady origins. To get hard evidence about what is going on, Nick and Rosemary make an uncomfortable journey by sea to Bilbao. But as fingers start to point at ÔSantZ MondialeÕ, prominent people, including a newspaper magnate, are deployed to attack Nick and Rosemary and their daughters. ÒMedicine ManÓ is the nineteenth book in a series of detective stories set in HM Customs & Excise.

Download or read book How I Survived a Chinese Reeducation Camp written by Gulbahar Haitiwaji and published by Seven Stories Press. This book was released on 2022-02-22 with total page 172 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first memoir about the "reeducation" camps by a Uyghur woman. “I have written what I lived. The atrocious reality.” — Gulbahar Haitiwaji to Paris Match Since 2017, more than one million Uyghurs have been deported from their homes in the Xinjiang region of China to “reeducation camps.” The brutal repression of the Uyghurs, a Turkish-speaking Muslim ethnic group, has been denounced as genocide, and reported widely in media around the world. The Xinjiang Papers, revealed by the New York Times in 2019, expose the brutal repression of the Uyghur ethnicity by means of forced mass detention­—the biggest since the time of Mao. Her name is Gulbahar Haitiwaji and she is the first Uyghur woman to write a memoir about the 'reeducation' camps. For three years Haitiwaji endured hundreds of hours of interrogations, torture, hunger, police violence, brainwashing, forced sterilization, freezing cold, and nights under blinding neon light in her prison cell. These camps are to China what the Gulags were to the USSR. The Chinese government denies that they are concentration camps, seeking to legitimize their existence in the name of the “total fight against Islamic terrorism, infiltration and separatism,” and calls them “schools.” But none of this is true. Gulbahar only escaped thanks to the relentless efforts of her daughter. Her courageous memoir is a terrifying portrait of the atrocities she endured in the Chinese gulag and how the treatment of the Uyghurs at the hands of the Chinese government is just the latest example of their oppression of independent minorities within Chinese borders. The Xinjiang region where the Uyghurs live is where the Chinese government wishes there to be a new “silk route,” connecting Asia to Europe, considered to be the most important political project of president Xi Jinping.

Download or read book China s Influence and American Interests written by Larry Diamond and published by Hoover Press. This book was released on 2019-08-01 with total page 223 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: While Americans are generally aware of China's ambitions as a global economic and military superpower, few understand just how deeply and assertively that country has already sought to influence American society. As the authors of this volume write, it is time for a wake-up call. In documenting the extent of Beijing's expanding influence operations inside the United States, they aim to raise awareness of China's efforts to penetrate and sway a range of American institutions: state and local governments, academic institutions, think tanks, media, and businesses. And they highlight other aspects of the propagandistic “discourse war” waged by the Chinese government and Communist Party leaders that are less expected and more alarming, such as their view of Chinese Americans as members of a worldwide Chinese diaspora that owes undefined allegiance to the so-called Motherland.Featuring ideas and policy proposals from leading China specialists, China's Influence and American Interests argues that a successful future relationship requires a rebalancing toward greater transparency, reciprocity, and fairness. Throughout, the authors also strongly state the importance of avoiding casting aspersions on Chinese and on Chinese Americans, who constitute a vital portion of American society. But if the United States is to fare well in this increasingly adversarial relationship with China, Americans must have a far better sense of that country's ambitions and methods than they do now.

Download or read book Skellig written by David Almond and published by Delacorte Press. This book was released on 2001-11-13 with total page 194 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: David Almond’s Printz Honor–winning novel celebrates its 10th anniversary! Ten-year-old Michael was looking forward to moving into a new house. But now his baby sister is ill, his parents are frantic, and Doctor Death has come to call. Michael feels helpless. Then he steps into the crumbling garage. . . . What is this thing beneath the spiders' webs and dead flies? A human being, or a strange kind of beast never before seen? The only person Michael can confide in is his new friend, Mina. Together, they carry the creature out into the light, and Michael's world changes forever. . . .

Download or read book The Canterville Ghost written by Oscar Wilde and published by Modernista. This book was released on 2024-05-30 with total page 32 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: »The Canterville Ghost« is a short story by Oscar Wilde, originally published in 1891. OSCAR WILDE, born in 1854 in Dublin, died in 1900 in Paris, was an Irish prose writer, playwright, essayist, and poet. Wilde's significance as a symbol for persecuted homosexuals around the world is immeasurable. Wilde himself was sentenced to prison and hard labour, his works were boycotted, theatrical productions were shut down, and he was publicly vilified. The Picture of Dorian Gray [1890] is his most famous work.

Download or read book Haunting Experiences written by Diane Goldstein and published by University Press of Colorado. This book was released on 2007-09-15 with total page 282 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ghosts and other supernatural phenomena are widely represented throughout modern culture. They can be found in any number of entertainment, commercial, and other contexts, but popular media or commodified representations of ghosts can be quite different from the beliefs people hold about them, based on tradition or direct experience. Personal belief and cultural tradition on the one hand, and popular and commercial representation on the other, nevertheless continually feed each other. They frequently share space in how people think about the supernatural. In Haunting Experiences, three well-known folklorists seek to broaden the discussion of ghost lore by examining it from a variety of angles in various modern contexts. Diane E. Goldstein, Sylvia Ann Grider, and Jeannie Banks Thomas take ghosts seriously, as they draw on contemporary scholarship that emphasizes both the basis of belief in experience (rather than mere fantasy) and the usefulness of ghost stories. They look closely at the narrative role of such lore in matters such as socialization and gender. And they unravel the complex mix of mass media, commodification, and popular culture that today puts old spirits into new contexts.