Bantam books A Close Run Thing Mallinson Allan

Canada 1817: Captain Matthew Hervey is suffering the effects of unrest within his beloved regiment, the 6th Light Dragoons • Their new commanding officer - wealthy, arrogant and cruel - has taken an immediate dislike to him. Somehow, Hervey must earn promotion while retaining his integrity and the loyalty of his men • Then the regiment is sent to Canada where, in the aftermath of war with the United States, Hervey faces danger on two fronts. Murderous native tribes are on the move • While, closer to home, he and his commanding officer have embarked on a collision course - the consequences of which will be devastating • Have you read A Close Run Thing and The Nizam's Daughters - the first two Matthew Hervey adventures? A Regimental Affair is the third book in Allan Mallinson's Matthew Hervey series

January 1830, and one of the hardest winters in memory • The prime minister, the Iron Duke, is resisting growing calls for parliamentary reform, provoking scenes of violent unrest in the countryside • Against this inflammable backdrop Lieutenant-Colonel Matthew Hervey, recently returned from an assignment in the Balkans, takes command of his regiment, the 6th Light Dragoons. His fears that things might be a little dull are quickly dispelled by the everyday business of vexatious officers, NCOs promotions and incendiarists on the doorstep of the King himself • But it's when the Sixth are sent to Brussels for the fifteenth anniversary celebrations of the battle of Waterloo and find themselves caught up in the Belgian uprising against Dutch rule that the excitement really starts

1827: Britain and the Mediterranean • Captain Sir Laughton Peto, recently engaged to Matthew Hervey's sister, is sailing his mighty line-of-battle ship towards Navarino Bay, and war with the Turks • Six months on, and Matthew Hervey is in London recovering from another bout of malaria and the wound from his battle with the Zulu. All is set for his marriage to the eminently suitable Lady Lankester, and his return to active duty at the Cape • But trouble lies ahead as familial commitments clash with affairs of the heart and Hervey finds himself embroiled in a military inquiry that could result in public humiliation. As the cataclysmic battle of Navarino Bay looms ever closer for Peto and his crew, Hervey faces a crisis that could change both his life and his military career...ban

India 1819: Matthew Hervey is charged with raising a new troop, and organising transport for India - for he, his men and their horses are to set sail with immediate effect • What Hervey and his soldiers cannot know is that in India they will face a trial for which they are woefully under prepared • A large number of Burmese war-boats are assembled near Chittagong, and the only way to thwart their advance involves a hazardous march through the jungle • Soon Hervey and his troop are in the midst of hot and bloody action once again • A Call To Arms is the fourth book in Allan Mallinson's Matthew Hervey series. His adventures continue in The Sabre's Edge. Have you read his previous adventures A Close Run Thing, The Nizam's Daughters and A Regimental Affair?

At the bloody siege of Badajoz, Matthew Hervey must overthrow the French - or die in the attempt • Allan Mallinson brings us another compelling and deeply atmospheric adventure featuring Matthew Hervey. If you like Patrick O'Brian, Bernard Cornwell and CS Forester, you will love this!

‘War is too important to be left to the generals’ snapped future French prime minister Georges Clemenceau on learning of yet another bloody and futile offensive on the Western Front • One of the great questions in the ongoing discussions and debate about the First World War is why did winning take so long and exact so appalling a human cost? After all this was a fight that, we were told, would be over by Christmas • Now, in his major new history, Allan Mallinson, former professional soldier and author of the acclaimed 1914: Fight the Good Fight, provides answers that are disturbing as well as controversial, and have a contemporary resonance. He disputes the growing consensus among historians that British generals were not to blame for the losses and setbacks in the ‘war to end all wars’ – that, given the magnitude of their task, they did as well anyone could have

Edgehill, 1642: Surveying the disastrous scene in the aftermath of the first battle of the English Civil War, Oliver Cromwell realizes that war can no longer be made in the old, feudal way: there has to be system and discipline, and therefore - eventually - a standing professional army • From the 'New Model Army' of Cromwell's distant vision, former soldier Allan Mallinson shows us the people and events that have shaped the army we know today. How Marlborough's momentous victory at Blenheim is linked to Wellington's at Waterloo; how the desperate fight at Rorke's Drift in 1879 underpinned the heroism of the airborne forces at Arnhem in 1944; and why Montgomery's momentous victory at El Alamein mattered long after the Second World War was over

After an epic and interrupted journey all the way from the snows of South Dakota, Jack Reacher has finally made it to Virginia. His destination, the closest thing to a home he ever had: the headquarters of his old unit, the 110th Military Police • Why? He wants to meet the new commanding officer, Major Susan Turner. He liked her voice on the phone. But now he's arrived, she's disappeared, and things are getting weird • Accused of a sixteen-year-old homicide and co-opted back into the army, Reacher says nothing • But he's sure as hell thinking of a way out

It's a Sunday morning, and the outspoken Speaker of the House of Commons has just been crushed under a mountain of citrus fruit • Bizarre accident or something more sinister? The government needs to know because here's a man who knows a thing or two that could compromise its future • Bryant and May and the Peculiar Crimes Unit should be on the case, however it seems the PCU is no more with one detective is in hospital, the other gone AWOL with the rest of the team having been dismissed • But events escalate, and soon a series of brutal yet undeniably clever killings linked to an old English nursery rhyme threaten society's very foundations and out-of-the-blue the PCU is (temporarily) back in business • And if the two detectives - 'old men in a woke world' - can set aside their differences and discover why some of London's most influential figures are being threatened, they might not only save the unit but also prevent the city from descending into chaos

'Because it was fought so close to his old home ground, Homer might have seen this war on the Gallipoli Peninsula as an epic. Brief by his standards, but essentially heroic. Shakespeare might have seen it as a tragedy with splendid bit-parts for buffoons and brigands and lots of graveyard scenes. Those thigh bones you occasionally see rearing out of the yellow earth of Gully ravine, snapped open so that they look like pumice, belong to a generation of young men who on this peninsula first lost their innocence and then their lives, and maybe something else as well...' • Gallipoli remains one of the most poignant battlefronts of the First World War and L. A. Carlyon's monumental account of that campaign has been rightfully acclaimed and a massive bestseller in Australia

Boston private investigators Patrick Kenzie and Angela Gennaro's relationship has hit the skids - their long-standing professional commitment and growing romance have disintegrated due to seemingly irreparable personal differences. But despite these problems, Prayers for Rain brings them together again to close down a predator whose modus operandi seems to put him beyond the law. This killer's insidious murder weapon is within his victims' minds: no smoking gun, no bloody knife, just merciless manipulation until despair drives his targets to kill themselves • As Patrick and Angie attempt to identify and save his next victim, this sinister force turns on them and thus begins a dangerous battle of wits: a tormenting, life-threatening game of psychological warfare in which simple survival seems a mixed blessing - because not even the winner will emerge unscathed

A century has always had a special resonance, in all walks of life, and none more so than in cricket. Scoring one hundred runs is the ultimate for a batsman. As former England captain Andrew Strauss admits, it's incredibly hard to do; for Ricky Ponting, it's a transformational moment in the career of a cricketer. Or in the words of Geoffrey Boycott, 'a century has its own magic' • In The Art of Centuries, Steve James applies his award-winning forensic insight to the very heart of batting. Through interviews with the leading run-scorers in cricket history and his own experiences, Steve discovers what mental and physical efforts are required to reach those magical three figures. Despite his own haul of 47 first-class tons, he himself felt at times that he was poorly equipped for the task