Riverrun The Broken Afternoon Mason Simon

THE FIRST OF THE CRITICALLY ACCLAIMED CHINA NOVELS, FROM THE MILLION-SELLING AUTHOR OF THE RICHARD AND JUDY BESTSELLER THE BLACKHOUSE • LI YAN • A grotesquely burned corpse found in a city park is a troubling mystery for Beijing detective Li Yan. Yan, devoted to his career as a means of restoring the respect his family lost during the Cultural Revolution, needs outside help if he is to break the case • MARGARET CAMPBELL • The unidentified cadaver in turn provides a welcome distraction for forensic pathologist Margaret Campbell. Campbell, married to her work and having left America and her broken past behind, throws herself into the investigation, and before long uncovers a bizarre anomaly • THE FIREMAKER • An unlikely partnership develops between Li and Campbell as they follow the resulting lead

THE NAIL-BITING FINAL CHAPTER IN THE LEWIS TRILOGY, FROM THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF COFFIN ROAD • THE NEW START • Fin Macleod, now head of security on a privately owned Lewis estate, is charged with investigating a spate of illegal game-hunting taking place on the island • THE OLD FRIEND • This mission reunites him with Whistler Macaskill - a local poacher, Fin's teenage intimate, and possessor of a long-buried secret • THE FINAL CHAPTER • But when this reunion takes a violent, sinister turn and Fin puts together the fractured pieces of the past, he realizes that revealing the truth could destroy the future

The Man Who Loved Islands presents Lawrence's skilled, intimate and lively portraits of humanity. In the title story a man buys a ninety-nine year lease on an island and finds himself cast off in its timeless world; in 'The Last Laugh' a couple are confronted with uncanny spectral visions, and an eerie faceless laugh; in 'The Fox' two women maintaining a farm feel the dark shadows of war, and a cunning creature threatens to destroy their livelihood. The stories in this collection are about what the characters know and do not know - about themselves, one another, and the circumambient universe

THE EVIL WRATH • Cambodia, 1978. Amid the Khmer Rouge's crazed genocide, soldier-of-fortune Jack Elliott is given the impossible task of rescuing a family from the regime • THE PAINFUL TRUTH • Eighteen-year-old orphan and budding journalist Lisa Robinson has received the impossible news that her father is, in fact, alive. His name - Jack Elliott • THE NOBLE PATH • As Jack tracks the hostages and Lisa traces her heritage, each is intent on reuniting a family. Yet to succeed, so must run a dangerous gauntlet of bullets and betrayal

The New Start • Fin Macleod, now head of security on a privately owned Lewis estate, is charged with investigating a spate of illegal game-hunting taking place on the island • The Old Friend • This mission reunites him with Whistler Macaskill - a local poacher, Fin's teenage intimate, and possessor of a long-buried secret • The Final Chapter • But when this reunion takes a violent, sinister turn and Fin puts together the fractured pieces of the past, he realizes that revealing the truth could destroy the future

Ryan Wilkins grew up on a trailer park, a member of what many people would call the criminal classes. As a young Detective Inspector, he's lost none of his disgust with privileged elites - or his objectionable manners. But he notices things; they stick to his eyes. His professional partner, DI Ray Wilkins, of affluent Nigerian-London heritage, is an impeccably groomed, smooth-talking graduate of Balliol College, Oxford. You wouldn't think they would get on. They don't • But when a young woman is found strangled at Barnabas Hall, they're forced to • Rich Oxford is not Ryan's natural habitat. St Barnabas's irascible Provost does not appreciate his forceful line of questioning. But what was the dead woman doing in the Provost's study? Is it just a coincidence that on the night of her murder the college was entertaining Sheik al-Medina, a Gulf state ruler linked to human-rights abuses in his own country and acts of atrocity in others? • As tensions rise, things aren't going well

This second volume of Tolstoy's shorter fiction, selected by the critic Sharon Cameron, contains 'Family Happiness', 'The Devil' and 'The Kreutzer Sonata', three of Tolstoy's unhappy-marriage stories as well as 'Father Sergius', a story of a loss of identity in ambitious pursuit of holy virtue and 'Master and Man'. Tolstoy's antidotes to delusion, fear, jealousy and even madness have an ethical thread pulled through the fabric of different themes and genres • This riverrun edition reissues the translation of Louise and Aylmer Maude, whose influential versions of Tolstoy first brought his work to a wide readership in English

A Double Murder • The naked corpses of Aylmer and Mary Younis are discovered in their home. The only clues are a note written in blood and an eerie report of two spectral figures departing the crime scene. Officer Jill Ferriter is charged with investigating the murders while her colleague Alex Cupidi is on leave, recovering from post-traumatic stress • An Elaborate Scam • The dead couple had made investments in a green reforestry scheme in Guatemala, resulting in the loss of all their savings. What is more disturbing is that Cupidi and Ferriter's disgraced former colleague and friend Bill South is also on the list of investors and the Younis's were not the only losers • An Unlikely Killer • Despite being in counselling and receiving official warnings to stay away from police work Cupidi finds herself dragged into the case and begins to trawl among the secrets and lies that are held in the fishing community of Folkestone

Cath is a photographer hoping to go freelance, working in a record shop to pay the rent and eking out her time with her manager Steve. He thinks her photography is detective work, drawing attention to things that would otherwise pass unseen and maybe he's right • Starting work on her new project - photographing murder houses - she returns to the island where she grew up for the first time since she left for Glasgow when she was just eighteen. The Isle of Bute is embedded in her identity, the draughty house that overlooked the bay, the feeling of being nowhere, the memory of her childhood friend Shirley Craigie and the devastating familicide of her family by the father, John Craigie • Arriving at the Craigie house, Cath finds that it's occupied by Financial Analyst Alice Rahman

Rome, 1955 • The artists are gathering together for a photograph. In one of Rome’s historic villas, a party glitters with socialites and patrons. Bear Bavinsky, creator of vast, masculine, meaty canvases, is their god. He is at the centre of the picture. His wife, Natalie, edges out of the shot • From the side of the room watches little Pinch – their son. At five years old he loves Bear almost as much as he fears him. After Bear abandons their family, Pinch will still worship him, while Natalie faces her own wars with the art world. Trying to live up to his father’s name – one of the twentieth century’s fiercest and most controversial painters – Pinch never quite succeeds. Yet by the end of a career of twists and compromises, he enacts an unexpected rebellion that will leave forever his mark upon the Bear Bavinsky legacy

Margaret Campbell had finally decided to leave Beijing - and the man she loved---and return home to the States. She had first come to Beijing to conduct a seminar on her specialty, forensic pathology, for the city's police. The invitation turned out to ask for more than she expected; she was thrust into the search for a murderer. This was how she met and came to fall in love with the Beijing police detective Li Yan. Although they began as enemies, the attraction between them was overwhelming - until personal tragedies pulled them apart. Now the police need an answer to a series of gruesome murders. Four men have been killed; the first three were Chinese and the fourth man was born in China but became an American in his youth. All were victims of what looks like ritual sacrifices

9th November 1989, East Berlin, the day the Berlin Wall will fall - Bernd Zeiger, a Stasi agent whose life's work, a manual on the demoralisation of political opponents, once made him renowned now faces an ailing psyche and the fading twilight of his career. His whole life has been reduced to a preoccupation with the disappearance of Lara, a young waitress at his local cafe • Twenty-five years earlier, during the Cold War, a physicist Johannes Held had been sent by the East Germans to infiltrate a US military operation in the Arizona desert, where teleportation and other paranormal activities were being investigated. On his return to Germany he refused to divulge what he had learned there and Zeiger was summoned to obtain his confession. The torturer and the tortured strangely became friends