Books published by Vintage Publishing

It is Midsummer's Eve. Three young friends meet in a wood to act out an elaborate masque. Each is killed by a single bullet. Soon afterwards, one of Inspector Wallander's colleagues is found murdered. Is it the same killer, and what could the connection be? In this investigation Wallander is always, tantalisingly, one step behind.

At a party in the Hollywood Hills, Stephen Monk finds his wife in the arms of another man. Betrayed and furious, he packs his belongings and returns to the home he was born in. But most of all, the memory of his lost love, Elizabeth Rydal, haunts him. Can he forgive his wife, and most importantly, himself?

Breaking a long silence Oliver, a young Englishman, writes to his elder brother, Patrick.

Four portraits, four settings, four narrators, all known as 'Christopher Isherwood'. Often regarded as the best of his novels, Down There on a Visit tells the vivid stories of Isherwood's life that, together with The Berlin Novels, were to have comprised his great unfinished epic novel.

In the streets of an ordinary Italian town, the people go about their everyday lives. In an old apartment block above them, a young man pores over photographs and plans, dedicated to his life's most important project. Day by day, in his imagination, he is rehearsing for his greatest performance.

On paper, Bruce Gold seems to have carved a comfortable niche for himself. His ancient father thinks he's a fool, his children fail to notice him and even his wife doesn't realise he's no longer living with her. Hugely funny and sweetly sad, Good as Gold is the story of children grown up, parents grown old, anad lovers grown apart.

A powerful and moving summer read that explores love, grief and the reality of the contemporary American immigrant experienceJonas, fresh from a failed marriage, is desperate to make sense of the ties that have forged him.

Rendered in vivid watercolour where parquet floors and patterned dresses morph together, The Wrong Place revolves around oft-absent Robbie, a charismatic lothario of mysterious celebrity who has the run of a city as chaotic as it is resplendent.

Since Kate Beaton appeared on the comics scene in 2007 her cartoons have become fan favourites and gathered an enormous following, appearing in the New Yorker, Harper and the LA Times, to name but a few.

The Primrose Bakery is a way of life. From croissants for breakfast to layer cakes at tea, it has the whole day covered.

In this bawdy memoir, Irish author Aidan Higgins dissects the pretensions of a Catholic family in County Kildare. He examines the mystery of growing up, his rearing on a run-down estate, the decline of a family fortune, and the wide world that he discovered in London and South Africa.

'Am I so smart or are you so stupid?' - Louis van GaalI started out wanting to write a book about Marco van Basten.

Never has master storyteller Evan Connell been more enthralling than in these incandescent pages - tales of real-life adventure ranging from the archaeology of Olduvai gorge to the exploration of the Antarctic; from Viking voyages to an Ice Age xylophone. Never has reality so far surpassed mere fiction or fantasy than in this magnificent volume.

Romilly Brandon was heir to a fortune and the handsomest and liveliest young man in the county. Returning years later, Romily finds many surprises - his one-time sweetheart grown old and withered, and in possession of a great secret that shakes him to his core.

Elissa Koebel's memoir is as scandalous and self-absorbed as its writer, but for Hope, it is more than just the latest salacious read. The chapter 'A Summer in Ireland' tells of an episode that Hope remembers well, when the younger, beautiful and unconventional Koebel arrived to disrupt a family holiday.

'A modern Graham Greene' - Sunday TimesDavid and Jo Henniger are on their way to a party at their old friends' home, deep in the Moroccan desert.

Stella was a clever girl, everyone thought so. Living with her mother and rather unsatisfactory stepfather in suburban respectability she reads voraciously, smokes until her voice is hoarse and dreams of a less ordinary life. But these things come at a price and one that Stella despite all her cleverness doesn't realise until it is too late.

Virginia Woolf began writing reviews for the Guardian 'to make a few pence' from her father's death in 1904, and continued until the last decade of her life.

Inspector Costas Haritos of the Athens CID has finally made time for a holiday. But when a minor earthquake causes his holiday beach to spit up a corpse, he finds there is no such thing as being off duty. Back in Athens, and working on the mystery of the as-yet unidentified body, Haritos is assigend a second case.

Set on the eve of World War II in a resort on the east coast of England, The Rich House follows the love affairs of six young people and their intertwined adorations. These three tip the balance, and relationships shift, but even war cannot halt the passions of the young.

Instead, she makes a living selling that dream to others - though her estate agency business has lately been going from bad to worse. So Maggie comes up with the perfect plan to end it all.

TOP TEN BESTSELLERMount Kailas is the most sacred of the world's mountains - holy to one fifth of humanity.

On the dunes west of Bruges, two-year-old Ydette is found wrapped in a blanket and taken back to live in a small grocer's shop. Opposite the shop live the wealthy van Roeslaere family and their son, Adriaan, a spoilt boy, plagued by ugliness.

When Nell Sely moves from sleepy Dorset to Hampstead she leaves behind a childhood of dull teas and oppressive rules for the freedom of the big city. In this city of seductive, shifting morals, smoke-filled jazz-clubs and glamorous espresso bars, Nell must master her new found independence and learn to strike her own course.

The Club in central London holds the quarters of Queen Victoria's finest regiment: the First Bloods. Inside the mighty building, with its two exquisite glass towers, the First Bloods and their regimental servants tussle over a portion of recreational ground.

** AS HEARD ON BBC RADIO 4 BOOK AT BEDTIME **'Stella Gibbons's gift is very special' Daily ExpressAmy, a neglected motherless child in 1920s London meets Robert, a wealthy American boy.

Uprooted from war-torn London, Alda Lucie-Brown and her three daughters start a new life at Pine Cottage in rural Sussex. Unsuited to a quiet life, Alda attempts to orchestrate - with varying degrees of success - the love affairs of her neighbours.

A young boy, Victor, is collected from school by a stranger in a bowler hat - the stranger says he has won Victor in a game of backgammon with Victor's father. The stranger, known as the Captain, takes Victor to live with the sweet but withdrawn Lisa, where he serves as her conduit to the outside world.

A trio of Trench Town R&B crooners, Peter Tosh, Bunny Wailer and Bob Marley, swapped their 1960s Brylcreem hairdos and two-tone suits for 1970s battle fatigues and dreadlocks to become the Wailers - one of the most influential groups in popular music. This title charts their complex relationship, their fluctuating fortunes, and musical peak.

The English see more ghosts than any other nation. comical and scary, like all the best ghost stories, these accounts, packed with eerie detail, range from the moaning child that terrified Wordworth's nephew at Cambridge to modern day hitchhikers on Blue Bell Hill.