Tags:world
The Shadow of War
From the bestselling author comes the story of rising conflict between the super-powers that gripped the world, a global war that almost happened: The Cuban Missile Crisis.In 1961, the new president John F. Kennedy, inherited an ill-conceived, poorly executed invasion of Cuba that failed miserably and set in motion the events that put the U.S. and the Soviet Union on a collision course that nearly started a war that would have enveloped much of the world. Extensively researched and vividly imagined, The Shadow of War brings to life the many threads that lead to the building crisis between the Soviet Union and the United States in 1962. Told from a multitude of perspectives and voices, from the Russian engineer attempting the near impossible task of building the missile launch facilities in Cuba, to the U.S. Navy commanders who ships are sent to "quarantine" Cuba, to the Soviet Premier, Nikita Khrushchev, desperately trying to maintain a challenging balancing act between the conflicting demands of various powerful forces, to the brothers Kennedy (Bobby and JFK) who can't allow Russia to land nuclear missiles in Cuba, or to appear weak in confronting Khrushchev, but keenly understand how close they are dancing to the edge of war. Shaara brings to life all the action and actors, famous and little known, that embodied a war that almost happened, the Cuban Missile Crisis.
Wolf at the Table
The Corrections meets We Need to Talk About Kevin in this harrowing multigenerational saga about a family harboring a serial killer in their midst in this “masterful novel” that “peers into the dark heart of America” (Richard Ford, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Independence Day) As late summer 1951 descends on Elmira, New York, Myra Larkin, thirteen, the oldest child of a large Catholic family, meets a young man she believes to be Mickey Mantle. He chats her up at a local diner and gives her a ride home. The matter consumes her until later that night, when a triple homicide occurs just down the street, opening a specter of violence that will haunt the Larkins for half a century. As the siblings leave home and fan across the country, each pursues a shard of the American dream. Myra serves as a prison nurse while raising her son, Ronan. Her middle sisters, Lexy and Fiona, find themselves on opposite sides of class and power. Alec, once an altar boy, is banished from the house and drifts into oblivion. As he becomes an increasingly alienated loner, his mother begins to receive postcards full of ominous portent. What they reveal, and what they require, will shatter a family and lead to devastating reckoning. Through one family’s pursuit of the American dream, Wolf at the Table explores our consistent proximity to violence and its effects over time. Pulitzer Prize finalist Adam Rapp writes with gorgeous acuity, cutting to the heart of each character as he reveals the devastating reality beneath the veneer of good society.
A Christmas Wish at Woolworths
Kent, 1953. The Woolworths Erith store, a beloved cornerstone of the community, faces closure if the December turnover fails to increase. And, as if store manager Betty Billington doesn't have enough on her plate, personnel shortages and a troublesome new employee add to the strife.With Christmas on the horizon, Betty and her staff must strive to find solutions to improve business and keep the store running – from special events for late-night customers to a festive group trip into central London. The Erith Players pantomime also promises to draw a crowd, injecting excitement into the local community.With the store festooned with decorations, lifting the spirits of customers and Betty, can a Christmas miracle save their beloved store?A Christmas Wish at Woolworths is the next instalment in Elaine Everest’s much-loved Woolworths series – a heartfelt tale of resilience, community and an unwavering spirit during hard times.This is the tenth book in the Woolworths series, following Celebrations for the Woolworths Girls.
A Woman of Intelligence
"Captivating." ––The Washington PostNamed a Best Book of Summer by Good Morning America • BuzzFeed • PopSugar • BookRiot • LifeSavvy • CT PostFrom "a master of historical fiction" (NPR), Karin Tanabe's A Woman of Intelligence is an exhilarating tale of post-war New York City, and one remarkable woman’s journey from the United Nations, to the cloistered drawing rooms of Manhattan society, to the secretive ranks of the FBI.A Fifth Avenue address, parties at the Plaza, two healthy sons, and the ideal husband: what looks like a perfect life for Katharina Edgeworth is anything but. It’s 1954, and the post-war American dream has become a nightmare.A born and bred New Yorker, Katharina is the daughter of immigrants, Ivy-League-educated, and speaks four languages. As a single girl in 1940s Manhattan, she is a translator at the newly formed United Nations, devoting her days to her work and the promise of world peace—and her nights to cocktails and the promise of a good time. Now the wife of a beloved pediatric surgeon and heir to a shipping fortune, Katharina is trapped in a gilded cage, desperate to escape the constraints of domesticity. So when she is approached by the FBI and asked to join their ranks as an informant, Katharina seizes the opportunity. A man from her past has become a high-level Soviet spy, but no one has been able to infiltrate his circle. Enter Katharina, the perfect woman for the job.Navigating the demands of the FBI and the secrets of the KGB, she becomes a courier, carrying stolen government documents from D.C. to Manhattan. But as those closest to her lose their covers, and their lives, Katharina’s secret soon threatens to ruin her.With the fast-paced twists of a classic spy thriller, and a nuanced depiction of female experience, A Woman of Intelligence shimmers with intrigue and desire.
Love Will Find a Way
Cliffehaven, December 1946From a hill above the town of Cliffehaven, a young woman makes a heart-breaking choice that will change the course of her life forever.Hours later, a baby is found in the Nativity crib of the local church.Who could have left him there, and why?The mystery preoccupies everyone in Cliffehaven - not least Peggy Reilly, who has enough to contend with at Beach View Boarding House without this extra secret to unravel.What's certain is that the whole community will pull together to keep the baby safe - and to support his mother when the truth of her identity is finally discovered...The latest gripping installment in Ellie Dean's Cliffehaven series, With Promises to Keep, is available to pre-order now!
The Berlin Letters
"Fans of codebreakers, spies, and Cold War dramas will be entrapped by Reay's tale of courage, love, and honor set against the rise and fall of the Berlin Wall." - Booklist Starred ReviewBestselling author Katherine Reay returns with an unforgettable tale of the Cold War and a CIA code breaker who risks everything to free her father from an East German prison.From the time she was a young girl, Luisa Voekler has loved solving puzzles and cracking codes. Brilliant and logical, she's expected to quickly climb the career ladder at the CIA. But while her coworkers have moved on to thrilling Cold War assignments--especially in the exhilarating era of the late 1980s--Luisa's work remains stuck in the past decoding messages from World War II.Journalist Haris Voekler grew up a proud East Berliner. But as his eyes open to the realities of postwar East Germany, he realizes that the Soviet promises of a better future are not coming to fruition. After the Berlin Wall goes up, Haris finds himself separated from his young daughter and all alone after his wife dies. There's only one way to reach his family--by sending coded letters to his father-in-law who lives on the other side of the Iron Curtain.When Luisa Voekler discovers a secret cache of letters written by the father she has long presumed dead, she learns the truth about her grandfather's work, her father's identity, and why she has never progressed in her career. With little more than a rudimentary plan and hope, she journeys to Berlin and risks everything to free her father and get him out of East Berlin alive.As Luisa and Haris take turns telling their stories, events speed toward one of the twentieth century's most dramatic moments--the fall of the Berlin Wall and that night's promise of freedom, truth, and reconciliation for those who lived, for twenty-eight years, behind the bleak shadow of the Iron Curtain's most iconic symbol.A Cold War novel that takes readers to the heart of Berlin to witness both the early and final days of the Berlin WallStand-alone novelBook length: approximately 107,000 wordsIncludes discussion questions for book clubs
BULLION: The Mystery of Gaddafi's Gold
In March 2011, as the Arab Spring sweeps across the Middle East, NATO powers begin a bombing campaign against the forces of the Libyan leader, Muammar Gaddafi. In London, a top secret team led by an abrasive Cold War veteran, Priscilla Clarke, has been given the task of finding the whereabouts of Gaddafi's gold. The unaccounted stash is rumoured to be worth at least a hundred billion dollars. The aim is to prevent the gold falling into the wrong hands. The Russian military intelligence, the GRU, is also after Gaddafi's bullion. Who will get to the treasure first?A member of Priscilla's team, a brilliant mathematician, is getting closer. An aspiring TV reporter finds himself drawn into the murky world of international espionage. Their separate nail biting adventures collide with disastrous consequences. When Priscilla discovers that somebody is betraying her, she takes the law in her own hands.The story races from London to Tripoli and Vienna, from the mysterious Bear Valley in Southern Tyrol to the heart of the Sahara Desert.If you're a fan of accurate historical detail and vivid geographical descriptions drawn on the author's first hand experience, this a book for you.The book is also an invaluable guide for anybody who wants to work as a TV reporter in a war zone.
The War Photographers
1943 – Bletchley Park, England Mae Webster, immersed in the clandestine world of codebreaking at Bletchley Park, is recruited to help unveil a spy who’s on the brink of exposing Britain's most guarded secret: the cracking of the Enigma code. As war rages around her, Mae's life takes an unexpected turn when she falls in love with the enigmatic New Zealand war photographer Jack Knight. Their relationship develops at pace, but tragedy strikes when one of Jack's photographs risks unmasking an elusive double agent. 1989 – Berlin, GermanyRachel Talbot, a globetrotting photojournalist, ventures into the heart of a fractured Berlin in search of the Stasi officer whom her beloved grandmother Mae blames for betraying their family. Rachel finds herself entangled in the East German uprising and is irresistibly drawn to a charismatic activist. As the Cold War threatens to boil over, Rachel races to expose a traitor before it’s too late.
Mr Einstein's Secretary
BEHIND MANY GREAT MENSTOOD ONE WOMANAll Hanna Fischer ever wanted to do was to study physics - but her world is suddenly turned upside-down and she is catapulted into a new and extraordinary life: as a secretary, a scientist, a sister and a spy.From racist gangs in Berlin to mobsters in New York City, and Hitler's inner circle during the Second World War, Hanna encounters some of history's greatest minds and most terrible moments, all while desperately trying to stay alive.She is a most unique secretary and she will work for many bosses - from shrewd businessmen to vile Nazis, to the greatest boss of them all, Mr Albert Einstein . . .**** PRAISE FOR #1 INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER MATTHEW REILLY'Thrilling, action-packed adventure from cover to cover' Guardian'Nobody writes action like Matthew Reilly' Vince Flynn'Get ready for a wild ride' Daily Telegraph'Exciting and entertaining' Chicago Sun-Times'An action hero worthy of Lee Child' Sydney Morning HeraldUndeniably addictive' Financial Times
A Beautiful Place to Die
Award-winning screenwriter Malla Nunn delivers a stunning and darkly romantic crime novel set in 1950s apartheid South Africa, featuring Detective Emmanuel Cooper—a man caught up in a time and place where racial tensions and the raw hunger for power make life very dangerous indeed. In a morally complex tale rich with authenticity, Nunn takes readers to Jacob's Rest, a tiny town on the border between South Africa and Mozambique. It is 1952, and new apartheid laws have recently gone into effect, dividing a nation into black and white while supposedly healing the political rifts between the Afrikaners and the English. Tensions simmer as the fault line between the oppressed and the oppressors cuts deeper, but it's not until an Afrikaner police officer is found dead that emotions more dangerous than anyone thought possible boil to the surface. When Detective Emmanuel Cooper, an Englishman, begins investigating the murder, his mission is preempted by the powerful police Security Branch, who are dedicated to their campaign to flush out black communist radicals. But Detective Cooper isn't interested in political expediency and has never been one for making friends. He may be modest, but he radiates intelligence and certainly won't be getting on his knees before those in power. Instead, he strikes out on his own, following a trail of clues that lead him to uncover a shocking forbidden love and the imperfect life of Captain Pretorius, a man whose relationships with the black and coloured residents of the town he ruled were more complicated and more human than anyone could have imagined. The first in her Detective Emmanuel Cooper series, A Beautiful Place to Die marks the debut of a talented writer who reads like a brilliant combination of Raymond Chandler and Graham Greene. It is a tale of murder, passion, corruption, and the corrosive double standard that defined an apartheid nation.
The Beach at Summerly
"There are few more skilled practitioners of the craft of summer fiction than Beatriz Williams." — The New York Times Book ReviewA ravishing summer read from New York Times bestseller Beatriz Williams, sweeping readers back to a mid-century New England rich with secrets and Cold War intrigue.June 1946. As the residents of Winthrop Island prepare for the first summer season after the sacrifice of war, a glamorous new figure moves into the guest cottage at Summerly, the idyllic seaside estate of the wealthy Peabody family. To Emilia Winthrop, daughter of Summerly’s year-round caretaker and a descendant of the island’s settlers, Olive Rainsford opens a window into a world of shining possibility. While Emilia spent the war years caring for her incapacitated mother, Olive traveled the world, married fascinating men, and involved herself in political causes. She’s also the beloved aunt of the two surviving Peabody sons, Amory and Shep, with whom Emilia has a tangled romantic history.As the summer wears on, Emilia develops a deep rapport with Olive, who urges her to leave the island for a life of adventure, while romance blossoms with the sturdy and honorable Shep. But the heady promise of Peabody patronage is blown apart by the arrival of Sumner Fox, an FBI agent who demands Emilia’s help to capture a Soviet agent who’s transmitting vital intelligence on the West’s atomic weapon program from somewhere inside the Summerly estate.April 1954. Eight years later, Summerly is boarded up and Emilia has rebuilt her shattered life as a professor at Wellesley College, when shocking news arrives from Washington—the traitor she helped convict is about to be swapped for an American spy imprisoned in the Soviet Union, but with a mysterious condition only Emilia can fulfill. A reluctant Emilia is summoned to CIA headquarters, where she’s forced to confront the harrowing consequences of her actions that fateful summer, and a choice that could destroy the Peabody family—and Emilia’s chance for redemption—all over again."Grand and gripping...shot through with suspense, romance, and glorious, beach-laden locales. I could not put it down."--Marie Benedict, New York Times bestselling author of The Mitford Affair