The Eastern Cape province has something to offer every visitor, whether you are looking for a relaxed beach holiday or a close encounter with wildlife, a cultural experience or a trip back into history. The province contains areas of almost unrivalled natural beauty and the range of landscape and vegetation types is simply incredible, from the snowy mountains of the Drakensberg, the wide open arid plains and rugged mountains of the Karoo, gently rolling grassy hills with forest patches tucked into their valleys, and deeply incised, thicket crowded river valleys, not to forget the finest sandy beaches set on a pristine coastline. This authoritative and comprehensive guide contains up-to-date information that will help you to make the most of your visit to this region. This guide includes: • Background information on the province's geography, climate, people and culture • Ten regional chapters from Tsitsikamma to the mountainous interior • Over 50 maps, including a map of each region, all the major towns and most of the smaller towns • The latest info on national parks and provincial reserves • Accommodation options from camping sites and backpackers' lodges to guesthouses and hotels that will suit all budgets • Where to eat and where to shop

The lights are coming down. Frank, Dean, and Sammy are about to take the stage. This is the moment we remember, when Las Vegas became classic. And it was at the Sands. Built in 1952 over the ashes of Hollywood Reporter publisher Billy Wilkerson's last chance in Las Vegas, the Sands was a collective effort. Underworld figures like Meyer Lansky, Doc Stacher, and Frank Costello provided the cash. Beloved Texas gambler Jake Freedman was the public face. Manhattan nightclub king Jack Entratter kept the Copa Room filled and made the party happen, every night. Carl Cohen, esteemed as the greatest casino manager in the history of the business, made the team complete.No matter how well your casino is run, you need a good hook to get the gamblers through the door. Casino owners were learning that entertainment was a pretty fair hook. Entratter, who broke into the entertainment business as a bouncer at the Stork Club, had risen to become manager of the Copacabana, one of Manhattan's hottest hot spots, before heading to Las Vegas. At the Sands, "Mr. Entertainment" brought many of the brightest stars of the day to the casino's showroom, named the Copa Room. The Copa was the hottest ticket in America and, for performers, one of the most coveted stages in the nation. Headlining at the Sands-or even opening there-meant that you had made it.For gamblers, the Sands was paradise. For tourists, it was a chance to see some sophistication-and maybe run into a famous singer or actor. The resort itself became a celebrity. Early on, the Sands hosted numerous radio and television broadcasts, bringing the casino into American households coast to coast when gambling was still not entirely reputable. Las Vegas is a city built on public relations, and the Sands' Al Freeman was one of its early masters.The Sands did more than showcase stars: it made them shine brighter. In 1960, while filming Ocean's 11, the Rat Pack (though they were never called that in those days) came together onstage at the Sands, creating a cultural icon that would define the era. Behind the scenes, Davis and Sinatra resisted the prevailing segregationist mindset of Las Vegas and helped to overturn Jim Crow on the Strip. With Sinatra as its star, the Sands reached its highest point, hosting everyone from John F. Kennedy to Texas oilmen to Miami bookmakers.Yet the Sands wasn't all comps and curtain calls. Behind the scenes, the casino's connection with reputed mobsters made it a target. For years, the FBI tried to penetrate the casino, including a disastrous wiretapping operation that turned into a public embarrassment for the Bureau. And Frank Sinatra-at one point a 10 percent owner of the Sands-would divest his interests after a highly-publicized feud with Nevada gaming regulators over his friendship with alleged Chicago mob kingpin Sam Giancana.thanksAfter Howard Hughes bought the Sands in 1967 (with Frank Sinatra explosively departing soon after) the Sands lost some of its allure, but the casino soldiered on under Hughes and other owners before being sold to Sheldon Adelson, who closed the property in 1996 to make way for the Venetian mega-resort, along the way doing for conventions what Jack Entratter had done for entertainment in Las Vegas four decades earlier.In the end, the Sands went out with a bang-an implosion that brought down its hotel tower. It had a wild 44 year run. Along the way, a host of characters, including the Rat Pack (and their many friends) in all their glory, author Mario Puzo, Apollo astronauts, wealthy arms dealer Adnan Khashoggi, and President Ronald Reagan passed through the Sands' doors.At the Sands tells the story of how one of the most fondly remembered classic Las Vegas casinos beat the odds to become a success, staged some of the Strip's most memorable spectaculars, and paved the way for the next generation of Las Vegas resorts. The Sands may be gone, but it did not fade away.

Arnold Joint is a middle-aged jovial detective working for the South Africa Police Department. For the last three years he’s been haunted by the unsolved murder of Samantha, his sister, and supported by his boss and colleagues he got by and tried to focus on other important cases. But the picture of his murdered sibling is unexpectedly and painfully brought up from his memory when the body of a young beautiful woman, along with her lover’s, is found exactly in the same condition as Samatha’s: a clean cut separating her head from her torso and the mysterious tattoo of a rose inked on her skin in a very intimate position. This time Detective Joint won’t stop until he finds the truth and will soon find himself entangled in a dangerous plot that involves so much more than he can imagine. When Nick Scott receives the call from a distraught Veronica Bings, the last thing he expects is to learn that his friend Mark, a pioneer in the development of Virtual Reality Software and Veronica’s husband, has been killed. But Nick, ex Major in the Royal Marines and founder of Executive Decision, an international security company, knows how to take the matter into his own hands and immediately starts digging into Mark’s murder, discovering the potential and the menace hidden in the depths of Virtual Reality, a parallel electronic world connecting every device with internet access. Matt Carbutt’s debut novel is an engaging, dark, layered thriller in which nothing is as it appears, a fast-paced intriguing spy story that will manage to captivate the lovers of this literary genre with every page. Matt Carbutt was born in England and immigrated to South Africa at a very young age. He currently lives in Noordhoek, Cape Town, South Africa with his wife, his young daughter, and Justice, the family timber wolf. Over the years, due to his business commitments in the electronic security industry, Matt has travelled extensively throughout Africa, gaining invaluable knowledge and experiences from the mysterious African continent. When he isn’t writing you’ll find him sailing Moonshadow II or plotting his next novel. Dreamland, an adult thriller, is his debut novel.