Meet Chief Inspector William Wisting, Head of CID in Larvik, Norway, the latest unforgettable import from Scandinavian crime fiction. An experienced policeman who is familiar with the dark side of human nature, he lives in challenging times for the Norwegian police force, meeting them with integrity and humanity, and a fragile belief that he can play a part in creating a better world. A police report of a shoe containing a severed foot washed up on the sand introduces CI William Wisting. Soon a second is washed up, but it is another left. Has there been some kind of terrible accident at sea?
Deep in the Cambridgeshire fens, Laura is living alone with her 12-year-old daughter Beth, in the old tollhouse known as Ninepins. She's in the habit of renting out the pumphouse, once a fen drainage station, to students, but this year she's been persuaded to take in 17-year-old Willow, a care-leaver with a dubious past, on the recommendation of her social worker, Vince. Is Willow dangerous or just vulnerable? It's possible she was once guilty of arson; her mother's hippy life is gradually revealed as something more sinister; and Beth is in trouble at school and out of it. Laura's carefully ordered world seems to be getting out of control. With the tension of a thriller, NINEPINS explores the idea of family, and the volatile and changing relationships between mothers and daughters, in a landscape that is beautiful but "€“ as they all discover - perilous.
Why keep your doctor happy? Well, he's the one you tell all your secrets to, who diagnoses you, who decides what potentially lethal drugs you're going to get. Now, hospital consultant and award-winning medical text-book writer John Larkin tells you what's going through a doctor's brain, and how to use that to your mutual advantage "€“ and he doesn't pull many punches. Learn the things that annoy doctors most and how (usually) to avoid them. Learn helpful medical knowhow - it's easier to talk with your doctor if you have an idea what he's rambling on about. Everyone who's ever had to see a doctor needs this hilarious book.
From his early years Tom Weir MBE was set on making his way as an explorer, writer and photographer, a progress interrupted by World War Two but then leading to expeditions ranging from the Himalayas to Greenland. For over forty years his feature 'My Month' appeared in the Scots Magazine, reflecting his fascination with Scotland, its remote corners, people and wildlife "€“ interests that made his award-winning TV programme Weir's Way so popular. From sources published and unpublished this collection of Tom Weir's writing has been selected by Hamish Brown from the whole body of his life's work. One of Hamish Brown's teenage inspirations was Tom Weir's Highland Days and, later, he was lucky to know and sometimes work with Tom. As a much-travelled author, lecturer and photographer himself, Hamish was delighted to put together this selection of Tom's work.
In 1798, Daniel Dickinson, a young Quaker father and widower, leaves his home in Pennsylvania to establish a new life. He sets out with two horses, a wagon full of belongings, his five children, a 15-year-old orphan wife, and a few land warrants for his future homestead. When Daniel suddenly trades a horse for a young slave, Onesimus, it sets in motion a struggle in his conscience that will taint his life forever, and sets in motion a chain of events that lead to two murders and the family's strange relationship with a runaway slave named Bett. Stripped down and as hard-edged as the realities of pioneer life, Spalding's writing is nothing short of stunning, as it instantly envelops the reader in the world and time of the novel, and follows the lives of unforgettable characters. Inspired by stories of the author's own ancestors, The Purchase is a resonant, powerful and timeless novel.
This book offers a detailed history of the sport of fell running. It also tells the stories of some of the great exponents of the sport through the ages. Many of them achieved greatness whilst still working full time in traditional jobs, a million miles away from the professionalism of other branches of athletics nowadays. The book covers the early days of the sport, right through to it going global with World Championships. Along the way it profiles influential athletes such as Fred Reeves, Bill Teasdale, Kenny Stuart, Joss Naylor, and Billy and Gavin Bland. It gives background to the athletes including their upbringing, introduction to the sport, training, working life, records and achievements. It also includes in-depth conversations with some of the greats, such as Jeff Norman and Rob Jebb. The author is a committed runner and qualified athletics coach. He has considerable experience of fell running, competing in the World Vets Champs when it was held in Keswick in 2005. He is a long-time member of the Fell Runners Association (FRA). Using a mixture of personal experience, material from extensive interviews, and that provided by an extensive range of published and unpublished sources, a comprehensive history of the sport and its characters and values is revealed.
The Shetland Islands sit where the North Atlantic Ocean and the North Sea meet, closer to the Arctic Circle than to London. Over the centuries they have been a vital staging post for Vikings, Hanseatic traders and merchant sailors from faraway lands. Yet somehow, the same islands remain 'off the map' of British consciousness. Ron McMillan spent weeks on the unbeaten Shetland tourist path, braving the weathers to explore scenic landmarks, archaeological treasure troves and remote islands so under populated that for centuries they have lived with the threat of abandonment. A travel writer for more than twenty years, McMillan cast an inquisitive and witty eye over present-day Shetland to interweave the Islands' history, archaeology and 400-million-year-old geology with observations of a remarkably hospitable society that remains intricately connected to the outside world. His warm and generous narrative is the first original Shetland travelogue since 1869. Set amidst fascinating locations and soaked in history, filled with stories skilfully told, this is a book for lovers of lyrical travel writing delivered with informed authority and irresistible humour.
"We pushed on well beyond the hour mark, neither of us wanting to remind the other of our agreement to return to the vehicle if we found nothing within that time. Surely beyond the next bend we would stumble across something. Instead we stumbled across several large mounds of what looked like undigested grass and leaves smoldering in the middle of the track. This prompted Dave to announce that it was time to retrace our steps. 'What are these?' I asked, wondering about his abrupt reaction. 'These are elephant turds,' he said, 'and judging by their appearance and smell I'd say their owners are not too far away.'" After Sudan, Zimbabwe. In the second volume of his African memoirs Chris McIvor, now Deputy Regional Director for Save the Children UK in Southern Africa, remembers his first stint in Zimbabwe, the many great characters he met, the poverty, the enormous job of repair required to European - African relations and, through it all, the hope.
Life is sweet for would-be bohemian Artie Conville. Safe at the helm of his subsidised magazine-'with a cosy office paid for by the tax-payer-'he's content to drift along quoting poetry, lingering over long lunches and flirting with the lovely Rosie McCann. The main thing is to keep the real world-'of nine-to-five jobs, mortgages and political violence-'at bay. So when his cushy number is threatened, Artie hatches a cunning plan to keep the funds coming in. But events quickly spiral out of control and before long he is up to his ears in a bizarre fraud. Can he avert disaster? Will he get the girl? With a cast of characters that includes a gun-toting playwright, a jealous police chief, a drunken actor and a giant white rabbit, this is a rich and riotous tale about coming-of-age in 1980s Belfast; a novel that is by turns darkly ironic and laugh-out-loud funny.
Peter Ross's weekly articles from around Scotland have been a sterling attraction for the readers of Scotland on Sunday for years. A selection of the best are collected here, for the first time. Each a gem of insight and wit, they provide a piece-by-piece portrait of a nation as it changes. Always with his eye on the individual, Peter Ross presents some of the less well known aspects of the country, including the latex-clad patrons of a fetish club, as well Daunderlust is an exotic mix indeed, Scotland as she really is, a hopeful country not without problems and pain, but a nation made great by the people who live, love, laugh and graft there. From anatomists who find dissection beautiful to chip-shop owners who sing arias while serving fish suppers, the Scots in these pages come over as eccentric, humorous, moving and extraordinary.as a new look at some of the more familiar, such as the painters of the Forth Rail Bridge. It is a look from the inside, one you are likely to recognise although one you will not have read about before, not in quite this way.
Tha iad òg is làn spòrs, nigheanan òga sa bhaile mhòir cho toilichte 's a ghabhas … ach is e clach-mhìle a th' ann an tricheadamh cola-breith. Is nuair a dh'iarras Graeme air Jo a bana-chàirdean fhàgail airson fuireach còmhla ris-san, feumaidh Bell agus Anna rudeigin a dhèanamh airson stad a chur oirre.
Bell, Anna and Jo have been having a whale of a time together since they left university, but when Jo announces that she's moving in with her boyfriend life takes quite a jolt. Desperate measures are called for if Bell and Anna want to put a stop to this … or maybe they all need to grow up and behave better.
Catrìona Lexy Campbell's comedy of dating, matchmaking and relationship sabotage tackles the genuine challenges of friendship and adult responsibility with a combination of sensitivity and mischief. Anyone who never wanted to grow up, or still hasn't, will recognise themselves in her lively cast of characters.
In 1811, while Great Britain was battling Napoleon, Thomas Jefferson declared that seizing British North America would be 'a mere matter of marching', but Jefferson hadn't counted on British Major General Isaac Brock. Brock moulded a reluctant citizenry, the natives, and his meagre army of 1500 redcoats into a fighting force. The future of North America would hang on the outcome. Unknown to even to even to General Brock, Jonathan Westlake, a young man ready to make his mark, was about to be the difference between defeat and victory.
The Tailor of Inverness is a story of journeys, of how a boy who grew up on a farm in Galicia (Eastern Poland, now Western Ukraine) came to be a tailor in Inverness. His life spanned most of the 20th century. His story is not straightforward. He was taken prisoner by the Soviets in 1939 and forced to work east of the Urals, then freed in an amnesty after the German invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941. He then joined the thousands of Poles who travelled to Tehran, then Egypt, to be integrated into the British Army, fighting in North Africa and Italy. He was then resettled in Britain in 1948, joining his brother in Glasgow. This is the story he told.
In 2018, Manchester is a rotten city propped up by a few bad men. After the cuts, the toppling of its flagship tower, the riots and the terror, the promise of a prosperous North is gone. The first industrial city is dying - its people left to fend for themselves. With the rise of nationalism, it's only getting worse. Now, the only currency is trust and Brian Meredith - addict, depressive, wheelchair-bound - has new trouble with old problems.
Looking back, Martha could';ve said no when Mr Booker first tried to kiss her. That would';ve been the sensible thing to do. But Martha is sixteen, she lives in a small dull town – a cemetery with lights – her father is mad, her home is stifling, and she';s waiting for the rest of her life to begin. Of course Martha would kiss the charming Englishman who brightened her world with style, adventure, whisky, cigarettes and sex. But Martha didn';t count on the consequences. Me and Mr Booker is a story about feeling old when you';re young and acting young when you';re not. Located in small town Australia, Cory Taylor';s first novel is already a smash hit in her home country. Martha';s adventures with Mr Booker will keep you on the edge of your seat and leave you with plenty to think about; maybe be angry about, then again maybe not.
The summer cottages are closed and peace is settling over the coast of Vestfold, but the autumn fog conceals evil deeds. In the novel 'Closed for Winter', William Wisting has a new case to solve during the off-season. Ove Bakkerud, newly separated and extremely disillusioned, is looking forward to a final quiet weekend at his summer home before closing for winter but, when the tourists leave, less welcome visitors arrive. Bakkerud's cottage is ransacked by burglars. Next door he discovers the body of a man who has been beaten to death. Police Inspector William Wisting has witnessed grotesque murders before, but the desperation he sees in this latest murder is something new. Against his wishes his daughter Line decides to stay in one of the summer cottages at the mouth of the fjord. Wisting's unease does not diminish when they discover several more corpses on the deserted archipelago. Meanwhile, dead birds are dropping from the sky.
To Ride the Mountain Winds, possibly the first history of aerial mountaineering to span the whole period from the 18th century to the present day, is written for everyone interested in the history of mountaineering and also those interested in the history of aviation and the limits to which pilots have pushed their machines and their skills. This should include not only climbers and flyers but also those airline passengers who, while sipping a gin and tonic in the luxury of a modern airliner, far above the shining snows, have paused to wonder what might happen if their jet-propelled magic carpet were forced suddenly to descend among them. Few will have pondered the connections between the histories of mountaineers and aviators but their interaction is almost as old as either.
Frances is doing fine; she has her life sorted. Then comes the phone call from Alec, the husband who left her for her younger sister Susan, thirteen years ago. Susan has disappeared, and Alec wants her daughter Kate to come and stay with Frances, out of harm's way. Meanwhile, Frances's youngest sister, Gillian, finds that two months after ending her relationship with a married man, she is pregnant. While all this is going on another crisis is looming. It's been a family full of secrets. Frances and Gillian haven't even managed to tell their parents Susan is missing. After all, she's left unacknowledged thirteen years of birthday and Christmas presents for Kate, the granddaughter they never saw. She was the one who made sure she could never be forgiven, and now there's another secret. It's not always the things you fear most, which matter in the end.
19 year-old Chani lives in the ultra-orthodox Jewish community of North West London. She has never had physical contact with a man, but is bound to marry a stranger. The rabbi's wife teaches her what it means to be a Jewish wife, but Rivka has her own questions to answer. Soon buried secrets, fear and sexual desire bubble to the surface in a story of liberation and choice; not to mention what happens on the wedding night...
For over thirty years John Allen was an active member of the Cairngorm Mountain Rescue Team and for most of them acted as Team Leader. In 'Cairngorm John' (his call sign when in contact with search and rescue helicopters) he recalls the challenges of mountain rescue and the many changes he has both witnessed and been a party to. His book is filled with exciting accounts of real-life rescues, discussions of mountain rescue topics such as hypothermia, first aid, and the use of helicopters and search and rescue dogs. Peopled with interesting characters his accounts are at all times humane and the book is laced with humour.
Urszula Muskus (1903-1972) spent sixteen years as a prisoner of Stalinist Russia. Torn from her industrious, middle class life following her husband's arrest, she was packed into a rail wagon and sent eastwards into Kazakhstan and Siberia. Cast into an alien world of political prisoners and depraved criminals she had to learn to survive to the best of her ability. 'The Long Bridge' was written over a period of fourteen years while she lived with her daughter in London, and translated after her death. Rich in stories of love and parting, long train journeys and forced marches on foot, other women prisoners, violent guards and bandit molls, it comes from a strong spirit who looked on her world with an unwavering eye.
William Hutchison Murray (1913 - 1996) was one of Scotland's most distinguished climbers in the years before and after the Second World War. As a prisoner of war in Italy he wrote his first classic book, Mountaineering in Scotland, on rough toilet paper which was confiscated and destroyed by the Gestapo. The rewritten version was published in 1947 and followed by the, now, equally famous, Undiscovered Scotland. In 1951 he was depute leader to Eric Shipton on the Everest Reconnaissance Expedition, which discovered the eventual successful route which would be climbed by Hilary and Tensing. From the 1960s onwards he was heavily involved in conservation campaigns and his book, Highland Landscape, commissioned by the National Trust for Scotland, identified areas of outstanding beauty that should be protected. It proved to be extremely influential. In 1966 he was awarded an OBE as he pursued a life of service, as is well illustrated by the various posts he held: Commissioner for the Countryside Commission for Scotland (1968-1980); President of the Scottish Mountaineering Club (1962-1964) and of the Ramblers Association Scotland (1966-82); Chairman of Scottish Countryside Activities Council (1967-82); Vice-President of the Alpine Club (1971-72); President of Mountaineering Council of Scotland (1972-75). He was a prolific author but a proper understanding of his life and work requires that we appreciate that his driving force was a quest to achieve inner purification that would lead him to oneness with Truth and Beauty. For many years the climber, author and teacher, Robin Lloyd-Jones (above) has been researching the life and work of Bill Murray and working steadily on this biography. It is not only a triumph of fine writing and interest, but a worthy accolade for this great man.
In the corner of the door lintel a cobweb shone like silver. Like me the spider works through instinct. It just gets up and gets on with the job without thought. Every so often it turns out something perfect. On a wind lashed coast in the far north a group of men assemble on a construction site. The Ness and Struie Drainage Project will dominate their lives for the next few months as they toil through the daylight hours and into the night, endure hardship and conflict and "€“ mostly -survive. Within the compound and fencelines a new, temporary world will form, bounded by sea, mountains and sky. Site Works is the story of the men and their work, transients creating something permanent and greater than they know.
Off the western seaboard of Scotland are hundreds of islands. Beginning on Arran, Jonny Muir sets out to explore these places with a single ambition: to reach the St Kilda archipelago, the islands at the edge of the world. On the way he attempts to finds his inner peace on Holy Island, takes part in a punishing foot race across the mountains of Jura, confronts the Inaccessible Pinnacle on Skye and walks the white-sand beach on Berneray. He encounters sharks and whales, discovers gory histories and follows in the footsteps of Boswell and Johnson, but island life is not without its challenges. 'Man-eating' midges live up to their reputation on Rum. An Atlantic storm threatens to rip his tent to shreds on Barra. Wicked weather lashes the Outer Hebrides, leaving his prospects of reaching St Kilda balanced on a knife-edge. An intensely personal account of a journey through some of Britain's most extraordinary landscapes. Complete with twenty five beautiful colour plates.
