Books by William Palmer

A work of non-fiction about eleven writers, including Dylan Thomas, Kingsley Amis, Patrick Hamilton, Jean Rhys and Elizabeth Bishop, and drink in their lives and work.

Working as a news photographer in 1930s Berlin, Walther Klinger becomes, by a vicious twist of fate, a society photographer for the new aristocracy of the Nazi party.

Is that the sort of thing you want?"' Thus Cornelius Marten asks the researcher who turns up one night at his house. And Cornelius, monstrously selfish, whisky glass constantly in hand, his mind shifting between past and present, finds that his mysterious guests release memories and truths he had preferred to forget.

Opening in 1939, this novel spans 50 years and depicts the central character's life as a political emigre in a run down part of London. He is invited to return to his home city by the renascent nationalist movement where he learns the price of remaining an "innocent" in history.

Working as a news photographer in 30s Berlin, Walther Klinger becomes - by a vicious twist of fate - a society photographer for the new aristocracy of the Nazi party. Walther's complicity makes him increasingly cynical and guilty, so that - for him - the coming of war is almost a relief.

Don Giovanni di Tenario, lives on in the memory of his servant Leporello. In Leporello's tale, the Don escapes his summons to Hell and master and servant travel through the courts and casinos, lodging houses and brothels of eighteenth-century Europe. Their journey ends with Don Giovanni returning to his family estates - and a terrible inheritance.

One day in June 1931 the body of a young girl was found on a lonely beach in Long Island, New York. She was soon identified as Starr Faithfull, a nicely brought up girl from a good family, but the picture soon began to change. A tabloid sensation in the 1930s, the story of Starr Faithfull is the basis of William Palmer's extraordinary new novel.

Four Last Things is a collection of short stories, a brilliant collection of short stories.

It is 1792 and a group of English gentlemen is recruiting settlers for a new world. Anti-slavers, they foresee the shining vision of a free colony in Africa where all races and classes can live together in harmony. More than a hundred men, women and children set sail from London bound for Muranda, an island off the west coat of Africa.

The Baltic country itself - the capital with its Old Town and Jewish Shops, the coast with its pine-fringes and little islands - is palpably there, and makes the moral drama of Jacob and his associates the more compelling.

The locals call it 'The India House'. Old Mrs Covington dreams of India and the days of the Raj. Mrs Covington may shut out the modern world, but she cannot prevent the arrival of her son Roland, and her handsome grandson, James. The fragile paradise the women have constructed is about to be changed forever.