Georges Simenon`s tragic tale of lost identity, translated by David Coward as part of the new Penguin Maigret series. What was the woman doing here? In a stable, wearing pearl earrings, her stylish bracelet & white buckskin shoes! She must have been alive when she got there because the crime had been committed after ten in the evening. But how? & why? & no one had heard a thing! She had not screamed. The two carters had not woken up. Inspector Maigret is standing in the pouring rain by a canal. A well-dressed woman, Mary Lampson, has been found strangled in a stable nearby. Why did her glamorous, hedonistic life come to such a brutal end here? Surely her taciturn husband Sir Walter knows
- or maybe the answers lie with the crew of the barge La Providence. ” Compelling, remorseless, brilliant”. (John Gray). ” One of the greatest writers of the twentieth century... Simenon was unequalled at making us look inside, though the ability was masked by his brilliance at absorbing us obsessively in his stories”. (Guardian). ”A supreme writer.. .unforgettable vividness”. (Independent). Georges Simenon was born in Liege, Belgium, in 1903. Best known in Britain as the author of the Maigret books, his prolific output of over 400 novels & short stories have made him a household name in continental Europe. He died in 1989 in Lausanne, Switzerl&, where he had lived for the latter part of his life. David Coward is Emeritus Professor of French at the University of Leeds, England & an award- winning translator of numerous works from French.
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Professor Allan J. Lichtman, who has correctly forecasted thirty years of presidential elections, makes the case for impeaching the 45th president of the United States, Donald J. Trump Impeachment will ”proceed from the misconduct of public men, or, in other words, from the abuse or violation of some public trust, ” & ”they relate chiefly to injuries done immediately to the society itself. ” (Alexander Hamilton, The Federalist, 1788) Professor Allan J. Lichtman, who has correctly forecasted thirty years of presidential elections, makes the case for impeaching the 45th president of the United States, Donald J. Trump In the fall of 2016, Distinguished Professor of History at American University Allan Lichtman made headlines when he predicted that Donald J. Trump would defeat Democrat, Hillary Clinton, to win the presidential election. Now, in clear, nonpartisan terms, Lichtman lays out the reasons Congress could remove Trump from the Oval Office: his ties to Russia before & after the election, the complicated financial conflicts of interest at home & abroad, & his abuse of executive authority. The Case for Impeachment also offers a fascinating look at presidential impeachments throughout American history, including the often-overlooked story of Andrew Johnson`s impeachment, details about Richard Nixon`s resignation, & Bill Clinton`s hearings. Lichtman shows how Trump exhibits many of the flaws (and more) that have doomed past presidents. As the Nixon Administration dismissed the reporting of Bob Woodward & Carl Bernstein as `character assassination` & `a vicious abuse of the journalistic process, ` Trump has attacked the `dishonest media, ` claiming, `the press should be ashamed of themselves.` Historians, legal scholars, & politicians alike agree: we are in politically uncharted waters. The durability of institutions is being undermined & the public`s confidence in them is eroding, threatening American democracy itself. The world wants to know where the United States is headed. Lichtman argues, with clarity & power, that for Donald Trump`s presidency, smoke has become fire. ...

Written in 1927, but never published in Lovecraft`s lifetime, this is the iconic American author`s exploration of a mind destroyed by obsession. The novel tells the story of Charles Dexter Ward through letters, documents & other `historical sources`. A young intellectual, Charles is lured to what his doctors believe to be his doom by his obsession with an ancestor, a reputed necromancer. ...

Having lost all his money in hare-brained get-rich-quick schemes, old Angus Campbell has nothing to leave his heirs but the proceeds of his lifeinsurance policies. After he falls to his death from a locked bedchamber in the tower of Shira Castle in the Scottish Highlands, his family gather. They are joined by amateur sleuth Dr Gideon Fell, who tries to solve the mystery. Is it suicide, or is it murder? From Shira to Glencoe Gideon Fell trains his forensic intelligence on trying to discover the truth behind events. In the meantime a tabloid pressreporter endlessly falls foul of the redoubtable lady of the house, two young people fall in love while arguing incessantly, & a cast of localscome & go as if this is all a normal days occurrence. & all the while bodies continue to pile up... The Case of the Constant Suicides is a masterfully plotted locked-room mystery from the master of the art. ...

Vish Puri is as fond of butter chicken as the next Punjabi. & when there`s plenty on offer at the Delhi Durbar hotel where he`s attending an India Premier League cricket match dinner, he`s the first to tuck in. Irfan Khan, father of Pakistani star cricketer Kamran Khan, can`t resist either. But the creamy dish proves his undoing. After a few mouthfuls, he collapses on the floor, dead. Clearly this isn`t a case of Delhi Belly. But who amongst the Bollywood stars, politicians, bureaucrats & industrialists poisoned Khan is a mystery. & with the capital`s police chief proving as incompetent as ever, it falls to Most Private Investigators to find out the truth. Puri is soon able to link Khan to a bald bookie called Full Moon & all the clues point to the involvement of a gambling syndicate that controls the illegal billion dollar betting industry. The answers seem to lie in Surat, the diamond cutting & polishing capital of the world (where Puri`s chief undercover operative Tubelight meets his match) & across the border in Pakistan, Puri`s nemesis, the one country where he has sworn never to set foot. Or do they?A certain determined, grey-haired lady with a unique insight into the murder believes that the portly detective is barking up `a wrong tree.` Is Mummy-ji right? Is there more to the murder than meets the eye? & why, to make life even more complicated for Vish Puri, has someone tried to steal the longest moustache in the world
- from right under the nose of its owner? Literally.
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This is the wonderful fourth outing for Delhi detective Vish Puri (”the Indian Hercule Poirot” (Financial Times)). When India`s Love Commandos rescue a young woman from a high-caste family who has been forbidden from marrying an untouchable, she looks set to live happily ever after with the man she truly loves. But just hours before the wedding, her boyfriend, Ram, is abducted. Has his would-be father-in-law made good on his promise & done away with him? It falls to Vish Puri to find out. Unfortunately, he`s not having a good month. He can`t locate a haul of stolen jewellery. He`s been pickpocketed. & the only person who can get his wallet back is his interfering Mummy-ji. Things only get worse when he discovers that his arch-rival, Hari Kumar, is also trying to locate the abducted boy
- as is a genetics research institute exploiting illiterate villagers. To find Ram first, Puri & his team must travel into the badlands of rural India where the local politics are shaped by millennia-old caste prejudices. ” If Mma Ramotswe is an African Marple, Vish Puri is an Indian Poirot”. (Financial Times). ”A joy to read”. (The Times).
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Early one morning, on the lawns of a grand boulevard in central Delhi, a group of professionals are attending their therapeutic Laughing Club when a 20-foot apparition of the Goddess Kali appears, & strikes one of their number dead. The goddess disappears without trace, & soon news of the crime has all India agog. For the victim is celebrated sceptic & rationalist Dr Suresh Jha, enemy of all gurus & mystics, & he has been silenced in a manner calculated to unnerve even his most loyal supporters. As the media go into a frenzy, it becomes clear that the case goes to the heart of the battle between superstition & rationality in modern India. But the fact remains that a murder has been committed. & as it becomes clear that powerful forces are at play, one man is perfectly placed to investigate: the portly detective Vish Puri. In fact, the idea that he could resist getting involved in such a tantalizing murder is preposterous. There is as much chance of him going without his lunch. ...

Meet Vish Puri, India`s most private investigator. Portly, persistent & unmistakably Punjabi, he cuts a determined swathe through modern India`s swindlers, cheats & murderers. In hot & dusty Delhi, where call centres & malls are changing the ancient fabric of Indian life, Puri`s main work comes from screening prospective marriage partners, a job once the preserve of aunties & family priests. But when an honest public litigator is accused of murdering his maidservant, it takes all of Puri`s resources to investigate. How will he trace the fate of the girl, known only as Mary, in a population of more than one billion? Who is taking pot shots at him & his prize chilli plants? & why is his widowed ` Mummy-ji` attempting to play sleuth when everyone knows Mummies are not detectives? With his team of undercover operatives
- Tubelight, Flush & Facecream
- Puri ingeniously combines modern techniques with principles of detection established in India more than two thousand years ago
- long before `that Johnny-come-lately` Sherlock Holmes donned his Deerstalker. The search for Mary takes him to the desert oasis of Jaipur & the remote mines of Jharkh&. From his well-heeled Gymkhana Club to the slums where the servant classes live, Puri`s adventures reveal modern India in all its seething complexity.


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Jack Wenlock is the last of the Railway Goslings: that fabled cadre of railway detectives created at the Weeping Cross Railway Servants` Orphanage, who trod the corridors of the GWR trains in the years 1925 to 1947. Sworn to uphold the name of God`s Wonderful Railway, Jack keeps the trains free of fare dodgers & purse-stealers, bounders & confidence tricksters, German spies & ladies of the night. But now, as the clock ticks down towards the nationalisation of the railways Jack finds himself investigating a case that begins with an abducted great aunt, but soon develops into something far darker & more dangerous. It reaches up to the corridors of power & into the labyrinth of the greatest mystery in all the annals of railway lore
- the disappearance in 1915 of twenty-three nuns from the 7.25 Swindon to Bristol Temple Meads, or the case of the ` Hail Mary` Celeste. Shady government agents, drunken riverboat captains, a missing manuscript & a melancholic gorilla all collide on a journey that will take your breath away.
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Victor Frankenstein begins his anatomy experiments in a barn in the secluded village of Headington, near Oxford. The coroner`s office provides the corpses he needs
- but they have often died by violent means & are damaged & putrifying. Victor moves his coils & jars & electrical fluids to a deserted pottery manufactury in Limehouse. &, from Limehouse, makes contact with the Doomesday Men
- the resurrectionists. Victor pays better than any hospital for the bodies of the very recently dead. Even so, perfect specimens are hard to come by...until that Thames-side dawn when Victor, waiting, wrapped in his greatcoat, on his wooden jetty, hears the splashing of oars & sees in the half-light that slung into the stern of the approaching boat is the corpse of a handsome young man, one hand trailing in the water...

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