Set in 1936 in Belgium and Ceylon, Smoke Portrait traces the development of an unlikely friendship between a young Belgian teenager, Marten Kuypers, and Glen Phayre, an Englishwoman in her twenties. Glen has left England to live on her aunt's tea plantation in Ceylon, where she embarks on the task of writing charitable letters to a Belgian prisoner. But the letters go astray, and are received instead by Marten, eager to discover the wide world outside his small village, and desperately missing his older brother Krelis, who has vanished and is presumed dead...Marten decides to reply to Glen in the guise of the grown-up prisoner she is expecting to hear from, and as their correspondence evolves, they both assume identities that, while false in many respects, remain true to their own selves in other ways. Gradually they come to depend on each other, and their pen friendship proves to be crucial when events in their real lives take on a darker, more threatening turn in the shadow of the impending world war...

One man's obsession leads him on the destructive trail of a very resourceful woman; and a man awakens to amnesia only to discover that whoever he is, someone is trying to kill him. Two classic mysteries from the 1950s, now back in print.

A boy, a science project and an answer to a critical problem. During monsoon season in Bangladesh, Iqbal’s mother must cook the family’s meals indoors, over an open fire, even though the smoke makes her and the family sick. So when Iqbal hears that his school’s science fair has the theme of sustainability, he comes up with the perfect idea for his entry: he’ll design a stove that doesn’t produce smoke! Has Iqbal found a way to win first prize in the science fair while providing cleaner air and better health for his family at the same time? Sometimes it takes a kid to imagine a better idea — make that an ingenious one!