Books published by Hodder & Stoughton

The first instalment in Anthony Riches' bestselling Empire series.'A master of the genre' The TimesThrilling, authentic and action-packed, this novel introduces soldier hero Marcus Valerius: a centurion stationed on Hadrian's Wall in the second century during a revolt against the Roman Empire.Marcus Valerius Aquila has scarcely landed in Britannia when he has to run for his life - condemned to dishonorable death by power-crazed emperor Commodus. The plan is to take a new name, serve in an obscure regiment on Hadrian's Wall and lie low until he can hope for justice. Then a rebel army sweeps down from the wastes north of the Wall, and Marcus has to prove he's hard enough to lead a century in the front line of a brutal, violent war.

From the author of Thirteen Hours - A Sunday Times '100 best crime novels and thrillers since 1945' pickONE COP. ONE KILLER. TWO CAPTIVES OF THE PAST.Mat Joubert, once a rising star of the South African police force, had it all. Then his wife was murdered, and his hopes died with her. Alcoholic, depressed and overweight, he is a shadow of his former self.Then a new killer appears on the streets of Cape Town, murdering at random. Mat throws himself into the case, viewing it as his last chance for redemption.But, as their shared desire for revenge threatens to destroy both him and the mysterious killer he is hunting, Mat soon learns that he is not the only one with ghosts to lay to rest . . .

From the author of Thirteen Hours - A Sunday Times '100 best crime novels and thrillers since 1945' pickThe former freedom fighter known as 'Tiny' has finally achieved his dream of a peaceful life. But then his beloved son is taken away from him. In that moment, he unleashes himself upon a corrupt South Africa. His victims are those guilty of crimes against children.He goes by the name of Artemis.Benny Griessel, a fading policeman on the brink of losing his job, family and self-respect, is assigned the case. Benny knows that this is his last chance - both his career and the safety of Cape Town are on the line.But then Benny meets Christine, a young mother working as a prostitute, and something happens that is so terrifying that the world will never be the same again for Benny, for Christine, or for Tiny.

Tars is a gripping firsthand account of life in the Royal Navy during the Seven Years War, from which Britain emerged as the world's major power.Through the lives of the main protagonists - a small band of sailors from across the ranks - Trafalgar author Tim Clayton paints a vivid picture of the navy and the era at its bloodiest and most tempestuous phase, beginning in 1758. From close-quarter battles and roistering on the streets of London to the political decisions that built up and knocked down empires. In this death-or-glory era the navy became the main weapon of an aggressive and power-hungry government, and fighting at sea was carried out at ever-closer quarters and with ever-increasing amounts of firepower. Using never-before published first-person sources, Tars takes us through these men's daily struggles as Britain navigated her course on the political map.

A new edition of the bestselling memoir Shame, including additional content from the author updating her story to the present day. When she was fourteen, Jasvinder Sanghera was shown a photo of the man chosen to be her husband. She was terrified. She'd witnessed the torment her sisters endured in their arranged marriages, so she ran away from home, grief-stricken when her parents disowned her. Shame is the heart-rending true story of a young girl's attempt to escape from a cruel, claustrophobic world where family honour mattered more than anything - sometimes more than life itself. Jasvinder's story is one of terrible oppression, a harrowing struggle against a punitive code of honour - and, finally, triumph over adversity.

The woman who has done more than anyone to expose the plight of women in forced marriages tells their harrowing and moving stories. 'I listen to those stories told by women who have been drugged, beaten, imprisoned, raped and terrorised within the walls of the homes they grew up in. I listen and I am humbled by their resilience.' Jasvinder Sanghera knows what it means to flee from your family under threat of forced marriage and to face the terrible consequences that follow. As a young girl that was just what she had to do. Jasvinder is now at the frontline of the battle to save women from the honour-based violence and threat of forced marriage that destroyed her own youth. DAUGHTERS OF SHAME reveals the stories of young women such as Shazia, kidnapped and taken to Pakistan to marry a man she had never met; and Banaz, murdered by her own family after escaping an abusive marriage. By turns frightening, enthralling and uplifting, DAUGHTERS OF SHAME reveals Jasvinder as a woman heedless of her own personal safety as she fights to help these women, in a world where the suffering and abuse of many is challenged by the courage of the few.

The third book in the critically acclaimed DI Marjory Fleming series.'Underscores Templeton's challenge to Ian Rankin in Scottish thriller writing.' Peterborough Evening News'Not for Templeton gruesome bodies strewn across the landscape left and right, here the emphasis is on character, motive and situation, building into an impressive whole. I'm sure it won't be long before I have to write "e;the best-selling Aline Templeton"e;. This is seriously good crime writing.' Sue Baker, 'Personal Choice', Publishing NewsOn a beautiful, eerily quiet May morning in a remote corner of Scotland, a girl is found brutally bludgeoned to death, the silence of the scene broken only by the ringing of her mobile telephone. DI Marjory Fleming thrives on the adrenalin and tension that come with heading a major crime investigation, but with the discovery of not one, but two murdered corpses on her patch, she's about to feel the pressure like never before . . . The community of Drumbreck - a tranquil weekend playground for rich Glaswegians - is small and close-knit. But the veneer of contented prosperity conceals nasty secrets and daily betrayals. DI Fleming must watch her own back as she searches for a link between the two crimes. Uncovering layer upon layer of intrigue and deceit, Fleming is about to learn that while the dead can't tell lies, the living most certainly can . . .

Rediscovered after 80 years gathering dust on a family bookshelf and first brought to public attention on BBC Radio 4 s Today Programme, A VERY UNIMPORTANT OFFICER is a detailed and intimate account of the experience of Captain Stewart, an ordinary officer in the front line in France and Flanders throughout 1916 and 1917.Recruited to The Cameronians (Scottish Rifles) in 1915 at the age of 33, Captain Stewart went 'over the top' many times, outliving 'so many better men', as he says with typical humility.Through his vivid testimony we learn of the mud ('more like thick slime'), the flies and the difficulties of suffering dysentry while on horseback. In one memorable passage he describes engaging the enemy while smoking a pipe - an episode for which he was awarded the Military Cross.Yet through the chaos and horror of the trenches, Captain Stewart reflects with compassion on the fears and immense courage of the men under his command.Newly edited by his grandson, Cameron Stewart, A VERY UNIMPORTANT OFFICER gives us a fascinating insight into the horrors and absurdities of trench life.

A heartwarming story by the much-loved Rosamunde Pilcher.Virginia Keile has a secret dream. To have a second chance at loving the tall, handsome Cornish farmer she met - and foolishly lost - the heady summer she was a debutante. Life has taught Virginia a great deal in twenty-seven years - about wedding a titled bachelor picked out by her mother, about a lonely marriage that ended in her husband's accidental death, and about nearly losing her children to her husband's mother and bossy Nanny. Now she has come back to picturesque Cornwall to rent a battered seaside cottage. For herself and for the children. And to discover if this time she can fill an empty house with love.

Acclaimed historian Max Arthur pays tribute to the Royal Navy from 1914 to 1945. Drawing on the personal stories of those who have served during this period, he has created a unique narrative history of the senior service. FORGOTTEN VOICES: THE ROYAL NAVY is a memorable and moving testament to the courage, spirit, skill and irrepressible humour of those who served in the Royal Navy during these crucial years.

Tokyo, 1940. While Japan's war against China escalates, young Yuji Takano clings to his cocooned life: his beloved evenings of French conversation at Monsieur Feneon's, visits to the bathhouse with friends, his books, his poetry. But conscription looms and the mood turns against foreigners, just when Yuji gets entangled with Feneon's daughter. As the nation heads towards conflict with the Allies, Yuji must decide where his duty - and his heart - lie.

The exceptional and powerful novel from the Booker-shortlisted author of OxygenIn a world where people slaughter the innocent without mercy or retribution, how can we have faith in humanity, or the future?Clem Glass, a photojournalist, returns from Africa to London convinced he knows the answer - mankind is fundamentally wicked and there is no hope for us. Yet when his sister falls ill and he takes her back to the West Country of their childhood, he cannot ignore the decency, joys and small kindnesses of those around him, or the pulse of goodness in his own heart. Until news comes that offers Clem the chance to confront the author of his nightmares.

To the harsh landscape of Sol's fourth planet travel thirteen astronauts, the best scientists from eleven nations, on a history-making voyage into the unknown. The international crew of the Mars mission have spent nine months in space, crossing 100 million kilometres, to reach the last great frontier. Their voyage is fraught with disputes, both personal and political, and their time on Mars limited to 'footprints and flags'; yet while there they will come face-to-face with the most incredible and shocking discovery of all.

The world is a puzzling, sometimes frightening place for Jessica Fontaine. As a child she only finds contentment in playing the piano and wandering alone in the empty spaces of Audlands Hall, the dilapidated country house where she grows up.Twenty-five years later, divorced, with her son still living at home, Jessica remains preoccupied by the desire to create space around her. Then her volatile ex-husband reappears, the first of several surprises that both transform Jessica s present and give her a startling new perspective on the past.The Language of Others tells the absorbing story of a woman who spends much of her life feeling that she is out of step with the real world, until she discovers why. Related with humour and compassion, it offers a fresh, illuminating insight into what it means to be normal .

Northern girl Harriet lives and works on a London estate which is a battleground between the white working class plus the immigrants versus the newly arrived middle class focaccia-eaters. Unhappy and overweight, she hires a personal trainer who lures her into joining the martial arts class he runs. There she learns the regime of the completely phoney martial arts master and embarks on a spiritual and literal journey which leads her to a hotel opposite the railway station at Crewe, the Weeping Women Hotel. This is Alexei Sayle's best work to date good plot, great characters plus his trademark anarchic black humour.

Harry Airton, a Scottish fisherman, has China in his blood. A chance encounter with a spook during the Korean War gives him the opportunity to return to the land of his birth and serve his goverment at the same time. They hatch a long-term plan to create the perfect spy: a triple agent with a cover that cant be broken, because its genuine. What Harry doesnt realise is that if he is setting the perfect trap, the Communist Chinese may also be finding the perfect bait. And that as the Cold War escalates and China marches towards Cultural Revolution and the end of the twentieth-century, the fates of two people who love each other are entirely unimportant.

Shortlisted for the 2001 Booker Prize and Whitbread Novel of the Year AwardIn the summer of 1997, four people reach a turning point: Alice Valentine, who lies gravely ill in her West Country home; her two sons, one still searching for a sense of direction, the other fighting to keep his acting career and marriage afloat; and Laszlo Lazar, who leads a comfortable life in Paris yet is plagued by his memories of the 1956 Hungarian uprising. For each, the time has come to assess what matters in life, and all will be forced to take part in an act of liberation -- though not necessarily the one foreseen.

Giacomo Casanova arrives in England in the summer of 1763 at the age of thirty-eight, seeking a respite from his restless travels and liaisons. But the lure of company proves too hard to resist and the dazzlingly pretty face of young Marie Charpillon even harder. Casanova's pursuit of this elusive bewitcher drives him from exhilaration to despair and to attempt to reinvent himself in the roles of labourer, writer and country squire. Based on a little-known episode in Casanova's life, this is a scintillating, poignant, often comic portrait of a far more complex figure than legend suggests and of the decadent society in which he operated.

As a child, Elias Almeida loses both his parents during the Angolan uprising against colonial rule. As an adult and professional revolutionary, he bears witness to mankind at its pitiless worst. Yet he continues to believe in a better world and in the redeeming power of love -- even though he cannot be with the woman he loves, who rescued him from thugs one snowy night on the streets of Moscow. Spanning forty years of Africa's past as a battleground between East and West, this powerful novel explores the heights and depths of human nature as it tells a profoundly affecting story of sacrifice and idealism.

From the author of Thirteen Hours - A Sunday Times '100 best crime novels and thrillers since 1945' pickAn antiques dealer is burned with a blowtorch and executed with a single shot to the back of the head. The only clues at the scene are a scrap of paper and an unusual choice of gun.Ex-cop Zatopek 'Zed' van Heerden has just seven days to solve the case - an almost impossible task made even harder when he discovers that, until a few years ago, there was no proof that the victim even existed . . .

Locked behind the Iron Curtain, a young boy grows up bewitched by his French grandmother s memories of Paris before the Great War. On her balcony overlooking the Siberian steppes, Charlotte Lemonnier fires her grandson s imagination with tales of the great flood in 1910, of Proust playing tennis in Neuilly and the President dying in the arms of his mistress, of avenues lined with chestnut trees and elegant cafes.Charlotte s vision of a paradise lost, though, is overlaid by her subsequent experience. As her grandson grows older, he learns how this remarkable woman survived the Russian revolution s aftermath, Stalin s purges and the horrors of the Second World War, gaining from her a portrait of the country drawn with an outsider s eye. Yet for all the monstrosities of his native land, he realises he is proud to be Russian. Torn between two cultures, as an adolescent he turns his back on all things French. Then in his twenties he abandons the Soviet Union and eventually reaches Paris where a startling revelation awaits him.This luminous, haunting novel traces a sentimental and intellectual journey that embraces the dramatic history of this century.

A young couple abandon the urban jungle of London's East End for a remote, mountainous corner of Washington State. Chosen by Mick, who is half-American, the place seems as alien as the moon to Rita. But she soon adjusts to raising their small daughter, Frances, in a broken-down cabin without electricity or water, and revels in the untamed beauty of their surroundings. She's scared, though, of the wild animals howling and screeching outside by night. What she cannot admit is her fear of Mick's violent temper. Worse, perhaps, are her own flashes of anger at Frances, frightening losses of control which leave her feeling shaken and guilty. Then she meets Ryan, a redneck poacher who plants in her mind the seed of rebellion.

A chilling crime novel from the Queen of Icelandic crime and author of the highly-acclaimed LAST RITUALS.If I die before I wake . . .A grisly murder is committed at a health resort situated in a recently renovated farmhouse, which turns out to be notorious for being haunted. Attorney Thora Gudmundsdottir is called upon by the owner of the resort - the prime suspect in the case - to represent him. Her investigations uncover some very disturbing occurrences at the farm decades earlier - things that have never before seen the light of day . . .MY SOUL TO TAKE is a chilling, dark and witty crime novel, and a welcome return for Thora, the heroine of the highly-acclaimed LAST RITUALS.

A ten-year-old girl vanishes without trace from a Fenland village, her body never found. Thirty years on, she comes sharply back to life in the mind's eye of her childhood friend, Tina Humber, who has done her best to put the past behind her. But now, as Tina returns home for a family wedding, she replays her memories in search of what happened, fearing that deep down she has always known who killed Mandy Baker.

The first Thora Gudmundsdottir novel from Yrsa Sigurdardottir - 'Queen of Icelandic crime'.'Yrsa is one of the most exciting new voices in the crime thriller world.' - Peter JamesA young man is found brutally murdered, his eyes gouged out. A student of Icelandic history in Reykjavik, he came from a wealthy German family who do not share the police's belief that his drug dealer murdered him. Attorney Thora Gudmundsdottir is commissioned by his mother to find out the truth, with the help - and hindrance - of boorish ex-policeman Matthew Reich. Their investigations into his research take them deep into a grisly world of torture and witchcraft both past and present, as they draw ever closer to a killer gripped by a dangerous obsession...

The second book in the critically acclaimed DI Marjory Fleming series.'Loved it. She has become the crime czar of the Scottish small town!' Val McDermid'In fictional terms the combination of domesticity and detection is very appealing, especially when it comes with a detailed, vivid portrayal of a complete society.' Literary ReviewThe wreck of the Knockhaven lifeboat with the loss of all three of its crew is a hard blow for the small Scottish town. But it's harder still when DS Tam MacNee discovers that it isn't simply a tragic accident.Was it just the act of vandals, bored in a fishing port stricken with unemployment? Could it be linked to the drugs trade which has taken root in the locality? Or is there someone who, in their determination to kill one person, is callous enough to take two innocent lives? And if so, who is the intended victim?As DI Marjory Fleming and her team investigate multiple murders, with a whole community hungry for justice, the pressure - professional and personal - is on.

'In Stockwin's hands the sea story will continue to entrance readers across the world' - GuardianIt is two years since Thomas Kydd was spirited away in the night to serve his country aboard the old line-of-battle ship Duke William. Now, he and and the other members of the ill-fated Artemis are shipwrecked sailors, back in London waiting to be summoned as court martial witnesses. Then, in a political act to shield an officer's reputation, they are shipped out in haste to the Caribbean - where sugar is king and yellow jack a fearsome peril.*****************What readers are saying about SEAFLOWER'A great read for lovers of a seafaring yarn' - 5 stars'Stockwin's seafaring books are so great to read. They leave you wanting more!' - 5 stars'I thoroughly enjoyed this book and highly recommend it' - 5 stars'I'm absolutely hooked now . . .' - 5 stars'An excellent read, full of action and adventure' - 5 stars

'Paints a vivid picture of life aboard the mighty ship-of-the-line' - Daily ExpressThomas Paine Kydd is in Halifax enjoying the recognition and favour of his fellow officers when Tenacious is summoned to join Horatio Nelson's taskforce on an urgent reconnaissance mission. Intelligence suggests the French Revolution is about to set the Mediterranean ablaze, but Bonaparte's fleet is nowhere to be found. Nelson and his 'Band of Brothers' begin a desperate search for him.Kydd's newfound ambition fuels his desire to be at the forefront of the hunt. But with power comes responsibility; with responsibility, accountability. Kydd will face his greatest challenge ever amidst bloodstained seas. And defeat will mean humiliation - or death.*******************What readers are saying about TENACIOUS'Stockwin's best effort yet' - 5 stars'Another fabulous story . . . Brilliantly written and totally engrossing' - 5 stars'A really good read, up to now the best in the series' - 5 stars'A very good insight into naval history . . . The best Kydd so far' - 5 stars'This book is great' - 5 stars

Thomas Kydd was promoted to acting lieutenant at the bloody Battle of Camperdown in October 1797. Now, he must sit an examination to confirm his rank - or face an inglorious return before the mast. But this is only the first of many obstacles for a man who was pressed into the King's Service and discovered a calling for the sea. Kydd is from humble origins, yet he attains the lofty heights of the quarterdeck as an officer in His Majesty's Navy. If he is to avoid spending the rest of his career as a tarpaulin officer, he must also become a gentleman. Kydd and his enigmatic friend Nicholas Renzi set sail in HMS Tenacious for the North American station. Aboard the old 64-gun ship, Kydd comes to doubt he will ever match up to the high-born gentlemen officers.

'In Stockwin's hands the sea story will continue to entrance readers across the world' - Guardian1803. Tensions are escalating again between England and France. While the Royal Navy launches reconnaissance, rescue missions and spies on the continent, French privateer ships are lurking in English waters poised to strike at British trade. Smugglers, perilous storms and a treacherous coastline all threaten to overcome HMS Teazer as her men fight to gain control of the seas around Cornwall and Devon. Meanwhile an unlikely rival is seeking her captain's heart. The beautiful and determined admiral's daughter could be the key to realising all Kydd's hopes and ambitions. But high society, he finds, can be as treacherous as his first mistress - the sea.*******************What readers are saying about THE ADMIRAL'S DAUGHTER'Stockwin's best yet' - 5 stars'Another great Julian Stockwin novel' - 5 stars'Great read, a brilliant series' - 5 stars'A very good book of adventures at sea' - 5 stars'The entire series is utterly brilliant' - 5 stars