The award-winning debut thriller from the bestselling author of Kolymsky Heights 'Quite simply the best thriller writer around.' Spectator Nicolas Whistler is young, bored and in debt. When an opportunity to make some money arises, he can't turn it down. He is sent to Prague to carry out a simple assignment, but he soon finds himself trapped between the secret police and the clutches of the mysterious Vlasta. Whether he likes it or not, Nicolas is now a spy. 'Fast-moving, exciting, often extraordinarily funny.' Sunday Times 'Brilliant. Don't miss it.' Observer

Good King Wenceslas looked out On the Feast of Stephen, When the snow lay round about, Deep and crisp and even . . . The age-old carol of Good King Wenceslas and his page--who set out on a bitter winter night to deliver the spirit of Christmas--is retold in this lavishly illustrated storybook. The majestic images in rich, soft oil pastels are a perfect complement to this much-loved tale.

'Beautiful, lyrical, sensitive and meaningful . . . It deserves to be read and re-read.' "Los Angeles Times" Two deadly enemies - a young Arab rebel and a Jewish runaway - meet in a remote valley to begin a quest. Both have been taught since infancy to hate; to attack for self-defence. But something incredible is happening to them, something that not even the fierce shelling of the Six-Day War can intrude upon. For they are on a fantastic mission, a mission both believe has been set for them by God . . . Gripping, exciting and incredibly poignant, Smith's Gazelle is an intriguing thriller from a master of the genre.

Beginning with the King's Cook, who is preparing a sumptuous Christmas Pie, Wenceslas takes us to a medieval feast. The lords and ladies are at their places, the wine is in full flow, the musicians are playing in the gallery and the entertainment has begun. All should be perfect. But when the good King looks up from his table he sees something more than just snow, falling deep and crisp and even . . . Richly illustrated by Stuart Kolakovic, this gorgeous poem captures the age-old magic of Christmas. In reimagining the much-loved carol of King Wenceslas, Carol Ann Duffy's wonderful poem offers merriment and festive cheer, but also celebrates what is truly important at this special time of year: the simple acts of kindness that each of us can show another.

Following a crippling depression and institutionalization, the writer "Desmond" wanders from his native Dublin around an increasingly unrecognizable Europe, and as far as the southern United States, assembling a patchwork of small stories, conversations, love affairs, memories, regrets, and confrontations: "the labyrinth of stories of people whose lives you touch . . . so that your mind becomes like a polychromatic Irish pub." Whether a series of tragic postcards, a cubist novel, or a memoir shorn of its connective tissue, A Farewell to Prague stands as Desmond Hogan's greatest achievement: a catalog of the moments that justify a life "or shine a light on its emptiness."

Under Plum Lake is a kid's book that also wowed the adults that read it. Right from the opening lines the reader is pulled into a world suffused with a sense of loss and then dazzled by a pyrotechnic display of storytelling. 'I went down again last night. I go every night now. It's August again, the same time of year, and I know it can still all happen again.' Lionel Davidson (1922-2009) was much admired by his his fellow writers - Graham Greene, Rebecca West, Frederick Forsyth and Philip Pullman among them. Davidson won the Golden Dagger award for crime thrillers an unprecedented three times, as well as scripting several films. Yet the eerily evocative Under Plum Lake remains an enigma, the only childrens book he wrote under his own name. It's a genuine one-off.