English books

In the far future, a young man stands on a barren asteroid. His ship has been stolen, his family kidnapped or worse, and all he has on his side is a semi-intelligent spacesuit. The only member of the crew to escape, Hari has barely been off his ship before. It was his birthplace, his home and his future. He's going to get it back. McAuley's latest novel is set in the same far-flung future as his last few novels (The Quiet War, Gardens of the Sun, In the Mouth of the Whale), but this time he takes on a much more personal story. This is a tale of revenge, of murder and morality, of growing up and discovering the world around you. Throughout the novel we follow Hari's viewpoint, and as he unravels the mysteries that led to his stranding, we discover them alongside him. But throughout his journeys, Hari must always bear one thing in mind.

Fomalhaut was first colonised by the posthuman Quick, who established an archipelago of thistledown cities and edenic worldlets within the star's vast dust belt. Their peaceful, decadent civilisation was swiftly conquered by a band of ruthless, aggressive, unreconstructed humans who call themselves the True, then, a century before, the True beat back an advance party of Ghosts, a posthuman cult which colonised the nearby system of Beta Hydri after being driven from the Solar System a thousand years ago. Now the Ghosts have returned to Fomalhaut, to begin their end game: the conquest of its single gas giant planet, a captured interstellar wanderer far older than the rest of Fomalhaut's system. At its core is a sphere of hot metallic hydrogen with strange and powerful properties based on exotic quantum physics. The Quick believe it is inhabited by an ancient alien Mind; the True believe it can be developed into a weapon, and the Ghosts believe it can be transformed into a computational system so powerful it can reach into their past, collapse timelines, and fulfil the ancient prophecies of their founder.

In a spellbinding new thriller, New York Times bestselling author Perri O’Shaughnessy plunges the audacious yet all-too-human Nina Reilly back into the center of a murderous family game and reawakens a very real nightmare she had every reason to believe was dead…and buried. In addition to coping with her demanding, sometimes creepy clients, Nina Reilly is dealing with prickly personal issues involving her sixteen-year-old son, Bob, his estranged father, and her investigator, confidante, and sometimes lover, Paul van Wagoner. Then, in walks disaster. The millionaire owner of a Tahoe ski resort, Philip Strong, is the father of Jim Strong: a sociopath who devastated many innocent lives, including Nina’s when she defended Jim again charges of murder two years earlier. He shattered her life, then vanished. Paul van Wagoner made sure of that. Now in negotiations to sell his ski resort, Philip has received a letter purportedly from his fugitive son in extradition-free Brazil, demanding his share of the profits. Nina is certain it’s a con, but to prove that means exposing the secrets of someone very close to her. But when two local women are murdered, Nina begins to question their links to her client and the truth about Jim Strong’s sudden disappearance. As Nina’s worst fears flood back, with time running out, she’s about to discover that the dreams of the dead can still destroy the living. With its breakneck pace, pulsing human drama, and serpentine twists, Dreams of the Dead once again establishes why O’Shaughnessy has been hailed as “a master of the legal thriller” (Vincent Bugliosi).

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER    “An eerie and beautiful novel . . . Its secrets continue to reveal themselves long after the book has been finished.”—The New York Times Book Review The sun is rising over Moat County, Florida, when Sheriff Thurmond Call is found on the highway, gutted like an alligator. A local redneck is tried, sentenced, and set to fry. Then Ward James, hotshot investigative reporter for the Miami Times, returns to his rural hometown with a death row femme fatale who promises him the story of the decade. She’s armed with explosive evidence, aiming to free—and meet—her convicted “fiancé.” With Ward’s disillusioned younger brother Jack as their driver, they barrel down Florida’s back roads and seamy places in search of The Story, racing flat out into a shocking head-on collision between character and fate as truth takes a back seat to headline news. Now a major motion picture directed by Lee Daniels starring Matthew McConaughey, Zac Efron, David Oyelowo, and Macy Gray, with John Cusack and Nicole Kidman Praise for The Paperboy “Dexter is a writer who cuts to the bone. There is not a spare word in this searing tale. . . . A bravura performance by one of America’s most original and elegiac voices.”—People   “Hip, hard-boiled and filled with memorable eccentrics . . . The Paperboy burns with the phosphorescent atmosphere of betrayal.”—Time   “A wise and fascinating tale well told.”—Entertainment Weekly

Opar, the lost colony of Atlantis, is hidden deep in the heart of Africa, awash with incredible riches. From this ancient city comes Hadon, an impoverished but ambitious young man who sets out to win the great games of Klakor, and thus become king of the Khokarsan Empire. As his quest for the throne leads him into the wild lands beyond the empire's edge, Hadon finds himself embroiled in a bloody civil war. Featuring a brand-new introduction and afterword by Christopher Paul Carey (Gods of Opar: Tales of Lost Khokarsa)

Most of David Nash's clients are guilty, some are monsters, but he is practically unbeatable in the courtroom. Then he takes on the defence of a man accused of murder but whose innocence he can actually believe in. As the case moves towards trial he becomes aware that he, the master of subtle chicanery, is being manipulated himself. But by whom? As his perfect case moves to a conclusion the answer to that question becomes a matter of life and death.

Long before Battle Royale or The Hunger Games, the author of The Planet of the Apes imagined a world governed by science and brutality gone mad in this long-neglected, dystopian sci-fi classic, now in a new translation Despairing at the state of world degeneration, a group of the world's most renowned intellectuals form the new Scientific World Government, aiming to put the world to rights. Elected into power, they quickly start making changes for the better, eliminating world hunger and cancer, encouraging scientific thought, and banning frivolous entertainment. But while congratulating themselves on a job well done, they fail to notice that actually, people are not happy. The suicide rate has sky-rocketed and, strangely, it turns out the public wants a little risk and conflict in their lives. So to cater to the masses, the Department of Psychology forms a plan: they will stage an entertainment show the likes of which the world has never seen before. It starts with gladiatorial style battles, bloodthirsty and brutal, where the victors become celebrities of unseen proportions, and quickly escalates into entire historical battle re-enactments involving chemical warfare and mass destruction. The Scientific World Government has unleashed a monster. What has the world let itself in for?