Abacus Salvation of a Saint Higashino Keigo

The murder of a media moghul in his country mansion appears to be the result of him disturbing a gang of would-be thieves. The robbers are swiftly caught, but when they are unexpectedly moved to a different prison they escape. Back in Edinburgh, a young solicitor reveals to the press that one of the subjects had left a letter with her some time before the break-in which proves his innocence. Jack Parlabane, journo-extraordinaire, is intrigued, but when he approaches the lawyer he discovers someone else is trying to get near her - someone with evil intent, political connections of the highest order and a corrupt agenda. Fast-moving, blackly humorous and intriguingly credible

Do you believe in ghosts Do we really live on in some conscious form after we die, and is that form capable of communicating with the world of the living ...Aye, right • That was Jack Parlabane's stance on the matter, anyway. But this was before he found himself in the more compromising position of being not only dead himself, but worse: dead with an exclusive still to file. From his position on high, Parlabane relates the events leading up to his demise, largely concerning the efforts of charismatic psychic Gabriel Lafayette to reconcile the scientific with the spiritual by submitting to controlled laboratory tests. Parlabane is brought in as an observer, due to his capacities as both a sceptic and an expert on deception, but he soon finds his certainties crumbling and his assumptions turned upside down as he encounters phenomena for which he can deduce no rational explanation

Is Alice here? Did she make it? Is she safe? • In the chaos, in the night, it was impossible to say which of the four had asked after Alice’s welfare. Later, when everything got worse, each would insist it had been them • Five women reluctantly pick up their backpacks and start walking along the muddy track. Only four come out the other side • The hike through the rugged landscape is meant to take the office colleagues out of their air-conditioned comfort zone and teach resilience and team building. At least that is what the corporate retreat website advertises • Federal Police Agent Aaron Falk has a particularly keen interest in the whereabouts of the missing bushwalker. Alice Russell is the whistleblower in his latest case – and Alice knew secrets

Кэйго Хигасино — знаменитый на весь мир японский писатель, мастер оригинальных детективных романов, отмеченный множеством премий, в том числе номинированный на премию Эдгара Аллана По и получивший премию Эдогавы Рампо. На родине произведения Хигасино называют «умными книгами», ведь его запутанные и увлекающие сюжеты невозможно упрекнуть в противоречивости • "A Death in Tokyo" — это сложный и захватывающий триллер, в котором главную роль играет самый загадочный сыщик мировой криминальной литературы. Он переносит нас в самое сердце Токио • На мосту Нихонбаси в Токио стоит статуя мифического создания — кирина. Однажды вечером человек, шатаясь, ступил на мост и рухнул под ноги крылатому существу. Патрульный, находившийся на дежурстве, решил разбудить мужчину, который, как он предположил, был пьян, но обнаружил, что тот был ранен ножом в грудь

Кэйго Хигасино — знаменитый на весь мир японский писатель, мастер оригинальных детективных романов, отмеченный множеством премий, в том числе номинированный на премию Эдгара Аллана По и получивший премию Эдогавы Рампо. На родине произведения Хигасино называют «умными книгами», ведь его запутанные и увлекающие сюжеты невозможно упрекнуть в противоречивости • "Newcomer" — это сложный и захватывающий триллер, в котором главную роль играет самый загадочный сыщик мировой криминальной литературы. Он переносит нас в самое сердце Токио • Детектив Киочиро Кага из Токийского полицейского управления только что был переведен в новый участок в токийском районе Нихонбаси. Недавно прибывший, но обладающий большим опытом, Кага сразу же получает назначение в команду, расследующую убийство женщины

A first ink drawing showed a hanged man swinging from a gallows on which perched an enormous crow. And there were at least twenty other etchings and pen or pencil sketches that had the same leitmotif of hanging • On the edge of a forest: a man hanging from every branch • A church steeple: beneath the weathercock, a human body dangling from each arm of the cross. . . Below another sketch were written four lines from Francois Villon's Ballade of the Hanged Men • On a trip to Brussels, Maigret unwittingly causes a man's suicide, but his own remorse is overshadowed by the discovery of the sordid events that drove the desperate man to shoot himself • This novel has been published in previous translations as Maigret and the Hundred Gibbets and The Crime of Inspector Maigret

From childhood, Katherine knows she is different, and that her parents are not who they seem to be. But as she grows up and becomes a mathematician, she faces the most human of problems - who is she? What is the cost of love, and what is the cost of ambition? • On her quest to conquer the Riemann hypothesis, the greatest unsolved mathematical problem of her time, she turns to a theorem with a mysterious history that holds both the lock and key to her identity, and to secrets long buried during World War II • Forced to confront some of the biggest events of the twentieth century and rethink everything she knows of herself, Katherine strives to take her place in the world of higher mathematics, reclaiming the voices of the women who came before her whose love of the language of numbers connects them across generations

For gauche young apprentice Milos Hrma, life at the small but strategic railway station in Bohemia in 1945 is full of complex preoccupations. There is the exacting business of dispatching German troop trains to and from the toppling Eastern front; the problem of ridding himself of his burdensome innocence; and the awesome scandal of Dispatcher Hubicka's gross misuse of the station's official stamps upon the telegraphist's anatomy. Beside these, Milos's part in the plan for the ammunition train seems a simple affair • Closely Observed Trains, which became the award-winning Jiri Menzel film of the 'Prague Spring', is a classic of postwar literature, a small masterpiece of humour, humanity and heroism which fully justifies Hrabal's reputation as one of the best Czech writers of today

Old Filth and The Man in the Wooden Hat told with bristling tenderness and black humour the stories of that Titan of the Hong Kong law courts, Old Filth QC, and his clever, misunderstood wife Betty. Last Friends, the final volume of this trilogy, picks up with Terence Veneering, Filth’s great rival in work and – though it was never spoken of – in love • Veneering’s were not the usual beginnings of an establishment silk: the son of a Russian acrobat marooned in northeast England and a devoted local girl, he escapes the war to emerge in the Far East as a man of panache, success and fame. But, always, at the stuffy English Bar he is treated with suspicion: where did this blond, louche, brilliant Slav come from? • Veneering, Filth and their friends tell a tale of love, friendship, grace, the bittersweet experiences of a now-forgotten Empire and the disappointments and consolations of age

In perfect Brookmyre tradition this new thriller featuring Jack Parlabane contains a lot of body fluids, the Establishment at its most corrupt, relatively few dead bodies and a formidable display of black humour • Jack Parlabane, the investigative journalist who is not averse to breaking the law for the sake of a good story, has finally been caught on the petard of his own self-confidence and is experiencing accommodation courtesy of Her Majesty. The fledgling Scottish parliament is in catatonic shock after experiencing its first dose of Westminster sleaze. The Catholic Church of Scotland is taking full advantage of the politicians' discomfort and is riding high in the polls as the voice of morality • Behind the scenes the truth is obscured by the machinations of the spin doctors and in prison, aware he's missing out on a great story, Parlabane discovers that contacts and a pretty way with words are no defence against people he has helped to put away

In the 6th century AD, the Near East was divided between two great empires: the Persian and the Roman. A hundred years on, and one had vanished for ever, while the other was a dismembered, bleeding trunk. In their place, a new superpower had arisen: the empire of the Arabs. So profound was this upheaval that it spelled, in effect, the end of the ancient world • But the changes that marked the period were more than merely political or even cultural: there was also a transformation of human society with incalculable consequences for the future. Today, over half the world's population subscribes to one of the various religions that took on something like their final form during the last centuries of antiquity. Wherever men or women are inspired by belief in a single god to think or behave in a certain way, they bear witness to the abiding impact of this extraordinary, convulsive age - though as Tom Holland demonstrates, much of what Jews, Christians and Muslims believe about the origins of their religion is open to debate