A maritime mystery from Edward Marston, author of the bestselling Railway Detective series. November 1907. George Dillman and Genevieve Masefield sail from Liverpool on the maiden voyage of the Mauretania. While posing as a passenger George is in fact an undercover detective hired by the Cunard Line. Dillman and Genevieve endure a nightmare voyage during which severe weather batters the vessel relentlessly and keeps the passengers away from the decks. Dillman is instrumental in rescuing a crew member from being washed overboard but he is too late to save one of the First Class passengers from the same fate. At first, it looks like a case of death by misadventure. But Dillman and Genevieve come to realise that it was an act of calculated murder, connected with the presence on board of a record shipment of gold bullion - twelve tons in all - sent from the Bank of England. At the time of her launch, the Mauretania was the largest moving structure ever built. She would later serve as a WWI hospital and troop ship. After returning to civilian service, Mauretania was retired and scrapped in the mid-1930s. Previously published under the name Conrad Allen, the Ocean Liner series is relaunched for a new generation of readers.

Although slavery was legally abolished in 1981 in Mauritania, its legacy lives on in the political, economic, and social discrimination against ex-slaves and their descendants. Katherine Ann Wiley examines the shifting roles of Muslim arāīn (ex-slaves and their descendants) women, who provide financial support for their families. Wiley uses economic activity as a lens to examine what makes suitable work for women, their trade practices, and how they understand and assert their social positions, social worth, and personal value in their everyday lives. She finds that while genealogy and social hierarchy contributed to status in the past, women today believe that attributes such as wealth, respect, and distance from slavery help to establish social capital. Wiley shows how the legacy of slavery continues to constrain some women even while many of them draw on neoliberal values to connect through kinship, friendship, and professional associations. This powerful ethnography challenges stereotypical views of Muslim women and demonstrates how they work together to navigate social inequality and bring about social change.

In Liverpool to embark on the "Mauretania's" maiden voyage, George Porter Dillman and Genevieve Masefield are again working undercover as private detectives. Soon after the ship leaves port, severe weather confines passengers to their cabins. When one of them vanishes and is believed to have gone overboard in the storm, Dillman and Genevieve realize he was murdered.

Social, political, economic and governmental aspects of Mauritania.

Saharan Crossroads: Exploring Historical, Cultural, and Artistic Linkages between North and West Africa counteracts the traditional scholarly conception of the Sahara Desert as an impenetrable barrier dividing the continent by employing an interdisciplinary lens to examine myriad interconnections between North and West Africa through travel, trade, communication, cultural exchange, and correspondence that have been ongoing for several millennia. Saharan Crossroads offers a unique contribution to existing scholarship on the region by uniting a diverse group of African, European, and American scholars working on various facets of trans-Saharan history, social life, and cultural production, and bringing their work together for the first time. This trilingual volume includes eleven chapters written in English, five chapters in French, and three chapters in Arabic, reflecting the multicultural nature of the Sahara and this international project. Saharan Crossroads explores historical and contemporary connections and exchanges between populations living in and on both sides of the Sahara that have led to the emergence of distinctive cultural and aesthetic expressions. This contact has been fostered by a series of linkages that include the trans-Saharan caravan trade, the spread of Islam, the migration of nomadic pastoralists, and European colonization. The book includes three major sections: (1) history, culture, and identity; (2) trans-Saharan circulation of arts, music, ritual performance, and architecture; and (3) religion, law, language, and writing. While the gaze of international political analysts has turned toward the Sahara to follow problematic developments that pose serious threats to human rights and security in the region, it is especially timely to recall that the people and countries of the Sahelo-Saharan world have maintained long histories of peaceful coexistence, interdependence, and cooperation that are too often overlooked in the present.