Natural resources like oil & minerals are the largest source of unaccountable power in the world. Petrocrats like Putin & the Saudis spend resource money on weapons & oppression; militants in Iraq & in the Congo spend resource money on radicalization & ammunition. Resource-fueled authoritarians & extremists present endless crises to the West
- & the source of their resource power is ultimately ordinary consumers, doing their everyday shopping at the gas station & the mall. In this sweeping new book, one of today`s leading political philosophers, Leif Wenar, goes behind the headlines in search of the hidden global rule that thwarts democracy & development
- & that puts shoppers into business with some of today`s most dangerous men. Wenar discovers a rule that once licensed the slave trade & apartheid & genocide, a rule whose abolition has marked some of humanity`s greatest triumphs-yet a rule that still enflames tyranny & war & terrorism through today`s multi-trillion dollar resource trade. Blood Oil shows how the West can now lead a peaceful revolution by ending its dependence on authoritarian oil, & by getting consumers out of business with the men of blood. The book describes practical strategies for upgrading world trade: for choosing new rules that will make us more secure at home, more trusted abroad, & better able to solve pressing global problems like climate change. Blood Oil shows citizens, consumers & leaders how we can act together today to create a more united human future.

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Olav lives the lonely life of a fixer. When you `fix` people for a living
- terminally
- it`s hard to get close to anyone. Now

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One Sunday morning in 1993 a 16-year-old girl named Eliza Claps goes missing from a church in the centre of Potenza, Italy. Shortly before her disappearance, Elisa had met Danilo Restivo, a strange local boy with a fetish for cutting women`s hair on the back of buses. Elisa`s family are convinced that Resitvo is responsible for their daughter`s disappearance, but he is protected by local big-wigs: by his Sicilian father, by a doctor with links to organised crime, by a priest who had vices of his own. Years went by & Elisa`s family could find only false leads. 2002, & Restivo is now living in Bournemouth. In November that year, his neighbour is found murdered, with strands of her own hair in her hands. Once again the police are at a loss to pin anything on him. It`s not until 2010, when Elisa`s decomposed body is found in the church where she went missing, that the two cases are linked & Restivo is finally dealt with. ” Blood on the Altar” combines a gripping true crime case with Jones` deep understanding of Italian culture
- the impunity it offers to the powerful
- he so expertly demonstrated in his bestseller: ” The Dark Heart of Italy”.

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A groundbreaking examination of a terrifying murder & its aftermath by the bestselling author of Hanns & Rudolf & The House by the Lake. In June 2006, police were called to number 9 Downshire Hill in Hampstead to investigate reports of unusual card activity. The owner of the house, Allan Chappelow, was an award-winning photographer & biographer, an expert on George Bernard Shaw, & a notorious recluse, who had not been seen for several weeks. Someone had recently accessed his bank accounts, & attempted to withdraw large amounts of money. Inside the darkened house officers found piles of rubbish, trees growing through the floor, &, in what was once the living room, the body of Chappelow, battered to death, partially burned & buried under four feet of paper. The man eventually convicted of his murder was a Chinese dissident named Wang Yam: a man who claimed to be the grandson of one of Mao`s closest aides, & a key negotiator in the Tiananmen Square protests. His trial was the first in modern British history to be held `in camera`: closed, carefully controlled, secret. Wang Yam has always protested his innocence. Thomas Harding has spent the past two years investigating the case, interviewing key witnesses, the investigating officers, forensic experts, & the journalists who broke the story, & has unearthed shocking & revelatory new material on the killing, the victim & the supposed perpetrator. It is a story that has been described in the press & by the leading detective as `the greatest whodunnit` of recent years: an extraordinary tale of isolation, deception, espionage & brutal violence, stretching from the quiet streets of north London to the Palace of Westminster & beyond. It is an explosive new work of non-fiction from an author working at the height of his powers. ...

` Never had I been given a tougher problem to solve, & never had I been so utterly at my wits` end for a solution.`A signalman is found dead by a railway tunnel. A man identifies his wife as a victim of murder on the underground. Two passengers mysteriously disappear between stations, leaving behind a dead body. Trains have been a favourite setting of many crime writers, providing the mobile equivalent of the `locked-room` scenario. Their enclosed carriages with a limited number of suspects lend themselves to seemingly impossible crimes. In an era of cancellations & delays, alibis reliant upon a timely train service no longer ring true, yet the railway detective has enjoyed a resurgence of popularity in the twenty-first century. Both train buffs & crime fans will delight in this selection of fifteen railway-themed mysteries, featuring some of the most popular authors of their day alongside less familiar names. This is a collection to beguile even the most wearisome commuter. ...

For the first time in history, the navies of the world have united against a common enemy
- a couple of thousand rag-tag, underfed
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Winner of the Costa Children`s Book Award 2011. ”I ain`t afeared of nuthin.” Saba`s twin is golden. She is his living shadow. He is strong & beautiful. She is scrawny & dark. Nothing will separate them... Raised in isolated Silverlake, Saba is ignorant of the harsh & violent world beyond her home. But when her twin is snatched by black-robed riders, red rage fills her soul. How will Saba find him in a wild, scorching & lawless land? Racing across the cruel dustlands to find him, she can spare no one. Not even the boy who saves her life. She must silence her heart to survive. Blood will spill. Every step of Saba`s journey sizzles with danger in this futuristic thriller, which beats with a powerful, red-blooded heart. ”A shot of pure adrenalin. Exuberant, exciting & charged with emotion... If a better book for teenagers is published this year, I`ll be surprised.” The Times ” Has an elemental power, unfolding across achingly barren landscapes, full of blistering hotwinds & swirling clouds of orange dust.” New York Times ...

An incredible debut novel: a coming of age tale set against the backdrop of the Yorkshire Ripper murders, `full of daring, authenticity & wit` (Rachel Cusk). ` The milkman found her. On Prince Philip Playing Fields. He crossed the dew-soaked grass toward what he took to be a bundle of clothes, but then he came across a discarded shoe, & then t` mutilated body. her name wor Wilma Mc Cann.` Leeds, late 1975 & a body has been found on Prince Philip Playing Fields. Ricky, teenage delivery van boy for Corona pop, will be late for The Matterhorn Man. In the years that follow until his capture, the Yorkshire Ripper & Rick`s own life draw ever closer with unforeseen consequences. Set in a time in England`s history of upheaval & change
- both personal & social
- this is a story told in an unforgettable voice.

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Blood River tells of author Tim Butcher`s unbelievable solo journey down the river Congo, through the heart of Africa. Ever since Henry Morton Stanley first charted its mighty river in the 1870s, the Congo has epitomised the dark & turbulent history of a failed continent
- from colonial cruelty under the Belgians to the kleptocratic chaos of Mobutu Sese Seko & the current post-apocalyptic riot of robber-baron politicians. However, its troubles only served to increase the interest of Daily Telegraph correspondent, Tim Butcher, who was sent to cover Africa in 2000. He remembered his mother`s stories of her own genteel river journey there in the 1950s & his connection deepened when he discovered that Stanley`s expedition was funded by the Telegraph. Before long, he became obsessed with the idea of recreating Stanley`s original expedition
- but travelling alone. Despite warnings from old Africa hands that his plan was `suicidal`, Butcher spent years poring over colonial-era maps & wooing rebel leaders before making his will & venturing to the Congo`s eastern border with just a rucksack & a few thousand dollars hidden in his boots. Almost 2, 500 harrowing miles later, he reached the Atlantic Ocean a thinner & a wiser man. His extraordinary account describes a country with more past than present, where giant steamboats lie rotting in the advancing forest & children hear stories from their grandfathers of days when cars once drove by. Butcher`s journey was a remarkable feat. But the story of the Congo, told expertly & vividly in this book, is more remarkable still.

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Lemmer is a professional bodyguard. Silent, invisible, he never gets involved. Emma le Roux is convinced she's seen her brother on the news as a suspect in the recent killing of four poachers. But her brother is supposed to have died twenty years ago. When le Roux hires Lemmer to watch her back while she goes looking for answers, it becomes clear someone wants to keep them in the dark. & when that someone tries to murder them both, for once in his life Lemmer steps out of the shadows. ...