Books by Garry O'Connor

The intimate and definitive biography of Ian McKellen, theatrical knight and a national treasure.

The Book is small and lethal, and everyone is fighting to possess it. It is worth a great deal of money and may have been written by the Marquis de Sade. Yet this mysterious, erotic book is intimately connected to a series of deaths and suicides of young women before it left France. The Book - The Memoirs of a Novice - has its roots in events that go back to the French Revolution, and has now become crucial to the present-day ambitions of a beautiful, young politician. Olympe de Chavagnac, a potential President of the French Republic when the present incumbent, Alphonse Lambaud, gives up his fourth term. Olympe is a monarchist who believes she is descended from the last Bourbons, executed during the French Revolution. So passionate is Olympe's belief in her re-incarnation, that she will stop at nothing to own the Book and with its authority become elected President, then restore the Bourbon Monarchy to France. And when she meets Guillaume Lemaitre, who becomes her sponsor and frustrated lover, Olympe forms an alliance with a modern de Sade - with terrifying consequences for the world. Inspired by author Garry O'Connor's discovery of an anonymous manuscript - Les Mémoires de Saturnin - in the garage loft after his family moved into their fifteenth century courthouse on the Oxfordshire/Northamptonshire borders in 1995, The Book that Kills is de Sade in a modern context, a powerful, erotic psychological thriller, a murder mystery and a historical intrigue. About the authorGarry O'Connor is a playwright, biographer and novelist. His many publications include acclaimed biographies of notable actors, a highly praised biography of the late Pope John Paul II as well as plays, most recently Debussy Was My Grandfather. His latest publications include Subdued Fires, a biography of Pope Benedict XVI and As Luck Would Have It, the memoir of the distinguished actor Sir Derek Jacobi, which he has co-authored with Jacobi.

The mettle of the famous First Household Cavalry Regiment was tested to the maximum in action in the mountains of Italy in 1943ΓÇô44. This book explores a largely undervalued and forgotten part of a costly and complex struggle. We directly experience what it was like to be there through the words of those who were. In late 1943 1st HCR was sent to Syria to patrol the Turko-Syrian border, it being feared that Turkey would join the Axis powers. In April 1944, 1st HCR was shipped to Italy. The Italian campaign was atthat time well underway. During the summer of 1944, 1st HCR were in action near Arezzo and inthe advance to Florence in a reconnaissance role, probing enemy positions, patrolling constantly. The Regiment finally took part in dismounted actions in the Gothic Line ΓÇô the German defensive system in Northern Italy. Based upon interviews with the few survivors still with us and several unpublished diaries, there are many revelations that will entertain ΓÇô and some that will shock. The 1st Household Cavalry 1943ΓÇô44 is published on the 70th anniversary of the actions described, as a tribute to the fighting force made up from the two most senior regiments of the British Army and, in the words of His Grace the Duke of Wellington who has kindly provided the foreword, ΓÇÿto gain insight into why such a war should never be fought againΓÇÖ.