Review - Canterbury Tales Cafe

[Daveo]

Blood And Honey by Graham Hurley.

 

Traded In recently @ Canterbury Tales Bookshop / Book exchange / Cafe / Guesthouse, Pattaya, Thailand.

 

The discovery of a headless corpse on the rocks below the cliffs on the Isle of Wight is only the beginning of a journey for DI Joe Faraday.

It's a journey which takes him right to the heart of the grim trade in human cargo from the crippled societies of the Balkans.

From cheap labour to prostitution, Portsmouth, like every other city in the UK is home to untold human misery; a black economy built on illegal immigration.

Joe Faraday is determined to find the real criminals that lie behind the tabloid hysteria.

 

DC Paul Winter on the other hand is determined only to find a way out of the disciplinary action that threatens his entire career. A burgeoning relationship with a young prostitute isn't exactly helping his cause.

And for Winter, it's beginning to look as if time is running out...

[Daveo]

Tearaways by Michael Macilwee.

 

Traded In recently @ Canterbury Tales Bookshop / Book exchange / Cafe / Guesthouse, Pattaya, Thailand.

 

At the turn of the 20th century in Liverpool, there emerged ruthless groups of street thugs who terrorised both the law-abiding and the lawless.

By 1946 the city had 86 juvenile gangs, with names like the Skull and the Snake Eyes, many of them living virtually beyond the law.

New terrors such as the Peanut and Swallow gangs appeared, eventually followed in the 1950's by the Teddy Boys and territorial youth gangs such as the Park Lane Gang who could hold an entire district to ransom.

Tearaways is a compelling criminal history of Liverpool gangs from the 1890's to the mid 1960's.

[Daveo]

The Towers of Samarcand by James Heneage.

 

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A select band of soldiers led by Luke Magoris are given the mission of persuading Tamerlane to defend Constantinople.

The great conqueror must turn his forces to the West to fight the Ottomans, who otherwise would destroy Constantinople and the Byzantine empire.

 

Luke, torn away from the woman he loves and all he knows, is trained as a Mongol warrior to impress Tamerlane and his army before joining his fellow Varangian guards, descendants of the men who once brought a vital treasure out of Constantinople.

It is this treasure, some say, that can still save the empire, uniting the Christian churches of the east and west in one final triumphant crusade to smite the Ottomans.

 

No longer an innocent patriot, Luke is caught in the crossfire and begins to question if his mission is honourable, or whether those who sent him have the best interests of Byzantium at heart.

 

The Towers of Samarcand is a powerful historical novel full of lively characters and enthralling scenes of battle, wealth, beliefs and trade in a part of the world torn by the clash of empires.

[Daveo]

Big Game by Dan Smith.

 

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13 year old Oskari is sent into the cold wilderness on an ancient test of manhood.

He must survive armed only with a bow and arrow, but instead, he stumbles upon an escape pod from a burning airliner, Air Force One.

Terrorists have shot down the President of the United States. The boy hunter and the world's most powerful man are suddenly the hunted, in a race against a deadly enemy.

[Daveo]

The Sanctuary by Raymond Khoury.

 

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A deadly quest to uncover an ancient secret that has destroyed everyone in its path for centuries...

 

Portugal, 1705. In the dungeons of a Templar castle, a dying old man bequeaths an ancient half burnt book to his young inquisitor.

Keeping one step ahead of those who would kill to wrench the book's secret from his hands, the inquisitor turns his back on his calling and sets off on an impossible journey to complete the old man's quest.

 

Baghdad, 2003.

A military unit makes a horrifying discovery: a hidden state of the art lab, where dozens of men, women and children have died. The scientist they were hunting is believed to be working on a bio weapons programme.

But the man known only as the hakeem, the doctor, has escaped, taking with him the startling truth about his work.

[Daveo]

The Gallipoli Story By Patrick Carlyon.

 

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The brave men were huddled in lifeboats, most prayed that their legs would work and not paralysed by fear, Some smiled to show they weren't scared, they peered into the darkness ahead and saw nothing.

 

Then, the dark shape of a man standing on a hill.

A shout from the shore, a single shot rang out and a bullet whizzed overhead.

 

The Gallipoli campaign had begun.....

 

Anzac soldiers fought on Turkish soil nearly a century ago, so why do we still care about what happened there?

Why do we celebrate a battle lost?

 

The Gallipoli Story takes young people on an unforgettable and tough journey deep into the heartland of war.

Patrick Carlyon digs past the myths to explore the lives and choices of the men, soldiers, politicians and generals alike, who found themselves caught up in a battle fought far from home.

 

A powerful piece of storytelling that brings history to life and shows us the human faces behind the grand story.

[Daveo]

 

Bouncers and Bodyguards: Tales from a Twilight World

by Robin Barratt.

 

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Bouncers and Bodyguards is a collection of astonishing true stories about the tough world of personal protection and nightclub doors from some of Britain’s most notorious figures. Read how Charlie Bronson helped his friends out on the doors of his local in the early 1970's before being banged up for well over 30 years; how Ken Wharfe, personal bodyguard to the late Princess Diana, spent his life in Special Branch looking after royalty and diplomats worldwide; how Manchester gangster Mickey Francis ran most of the city’s doors back in the 1980's and how a top British security firm advertised for bouncers for a high risk "suicide" operation in central Baghdad.

By turns funny, sad, and shocking, these candid accounts were written exclusively for this publication by individuals who have spent much of their working lives in what is a volatile, violent, and frequently unpredictable industry.

Compiled by former bodyguard, ex-mercenary, and well-known nightclub bouncer Robin Barratt, Bouncers and Bodyguards is an exposé of an infamous twilight world about which rumors have often circulated.

The truth has never really been uncovered, until now, contains contributions from many well known figures, including Dave Courtney, Steve Wraith, Charlie Bronson, and Mickey Francis.

 

[Daveo]

A Colder War (Thomas Kell Spy Thriller, Book 2)

by Charles Cumming.

 

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From the winner of the CWA Ian Fleming Steel Dagger 2012 for Best Thriller of the Year comes a gripping and suspenseful new spy novel.

Perfect for fans of John le Carré, Charles Cumming is ‘the master of the modern spy thriller.

 

MI6's Head of Station in Turkey is killed in a mysterious plane crash.

Amelia Levene, chief of the Secret Intelligence Service, wants the incident investigated, quickly and quietly.

 

The only man she can trust is Thomas Kell, a disgraced spy searching for redemption.

 

Arriving in Istanbul, Kell discovers that MI6 operations in the region have been fatally compromised: a traitor inside Western Intelligence threatens not just the Special Relationship, but the security of the entire Middle East.

 

Kell’s search for the mole takes him from London, to Greece, and into Eastern Europe.

But when Kell is betrayed by those closest to him, the stakes become personal.

He will do anything to see this operation through, including putting himself, and others, in the line of fire…

[Daveo]

Before I Go to Sleep by S.J. Watson.

 

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As I sleep, my mind will erase everything I did today.

I will wake up tomorrow as I did this morning.

Thinking I'm still a child, thinking I have a whole lifetime of choice ahead of me...

 

Memories define us.

So what if you lost yours every time you went to sleep?

Your name, your identity, your past, even the people you love, all forgotten overnight.

And the one person you trust may only be telling you half the story.

 

Welcome to Christine's life.

[Daveo]

The Sett by Sir Ranulph Fiennes.

 

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Mild mannered accountant Alex Goodman is the archetypal little man who becomes a hero during his quest to track down the killers of his wife and daughter.

In a novel about ruthlessness and revenge, Alex takes on Yardies, the IRA, badger baiters, the CIA and the President of Pakistan, to name a few.

[Daveo]

Misfortune by Wesley Stace.

 

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A rich, outrageous, Dickensian novel in the comic tradition of The Crimson Petal and the White about a boy raised as a girl in the richest home in 19th century England.

[Daveo]

All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr.

 

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From the highly acclaimed, multiple award-winning Anthony Doerr, the beautiful, stunningly ambitious instant bestseller about a blind French girl and a German boy whose paths collide in occupied France as both try to survive the devastation of World War II.

 

Marie-Laure lives with her father in Paris near the Museum of Natural History, where he works as the master of its thousands of locks.

When she is six, Marie-Laure goes blind and her father builds a perfect miniature of their neighborhood so she can memorize it by touch and navigate her way home.

When she is twelve, the Nazis occupy Paris and father and daughter flee to the walled citadel of Saint-Malo, where Marie-Laure’s reclusive great uncle lives in a tall house by the sea. With them they carry what might be the museum’s most valuable and dangerous jewel.

 

In a mining town in Germany, the orphan Werner grows up with his younger sister, enchanted by a crude radio they find.

Werner becomes an expert at building and fixing these crucial new instruments, a talent that wins him a place at a brutal academy for Hitler Youth, then a special assignment to track the resistance.

More and more aware of the human cost of his intelligence, Werner travels through the heart of the war and, finally, into Saint-Malo, where his story and Marie-Laure’s converge.

[Daveo]

Solitude Creek by Jeffery Deaver.

 

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A tragedy occurs at a small concert venue on the Monterey Peninsula.

Cries of "fire" are raised and, panicked, people run for the doors, only to find them blocked.

A half dozen people die and others are seriously injured.

But it's the panic and the stampede that killed; there was no fire.

 

Kathryn Dance, a brilliant California Bureau of Investigation agent and body language expert, discovers that the stampede was caused intentionally and that the perpetrator, a man obsessed with turning people's own fears and greed into weapons, has more attacks planned.

She and her team must race against the clock to find where he will strike next before more innocents die.

[Daveo]

Tourist Season by Carl Hiaasen.

 

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The only trace of the first victim was his Shriner's fez washed up on the Miami beach.

The second victim, the head of the city's chamber of commerce, was found dead with a toy rubber alligator lodged in his throat. And that was just the beginning...

Now Brian Keyes, reporter turned private eye, must move from muckraking to rooting out murder, in a caper that will mix football players, politicians, and police with a group of fanatics and a very hungry crocodile.

[Daveo]

The Apprentice by Tess Gerritsen.

 

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It is a boiling hot Boston summer.

Adding to the city's woes is a series of shocking crimes, in which wealthy men are made to watch while their wives are brutalized. A sadistic demand that ends in abduction and death.

 

The pattern suggests one man: serial killer Warren Hoyt, recently removed from the city's streets.

Police can only assume an acolyte is at large, a maniac basing his attacks on the twisted medical techniques of the madman he so admires.

At least that's what Detective Jane Rizzoli thinks.

Forced again to confront the killer who scarred her, literally and figuratively, she is determined to finally end Hoyt's awful influence . . . even if it means receiving more resistance from her all male homicide squad.

 

But Rizzoli isn't counting on the U.S. government's sudden interest.

Or on meeting Special Agent Gabriel Dean, who knows more than he will tell.

Most of all, she isn't counting on becoming a target herself, once Hoyt is suddenly free, joining his mysterious blood brother in a vicious vendetta.

Filled with superbly created characters and the medical and police procedural details that are her trademark.

The Apprentice is Tess Gerritsen at her brilliant best, set in a stunning world where evil is easy to learn and hard to end, this is a thriller by a master who could teach other authors a thing or two.

 

[Daveo]

The Hanging Girl by Jussi Adler-Olsen.

 

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In the middle of his usual hard earnt morning nap in the basement of police headquarters, Carl Mørck, head of Department Q, receives a call from a colleague working on the Danish island of Bornholm.

Carl is dismissive when he realizes that a new case is being foisted on him, but a few hours later, he receives some shocking news that leaves his headstrong assistant Rose more furious than usual.

Carl has no choice but to lead Department Q into the tragic cold case of a vivacious seventeen year old girl who vanished from school, only to be found dead hanging high up in a tree.

The investigation will take them from the remote island of Bornholm to a strange sun worshipping cult, where Carl, Assad, Rose, and newcomer Gordon attempt to stop a string of new murders and a skilled manipulator who refuses to let anything; or anyone, get in the way.

[Daveo]

Spycatcher: The Candid Autobiography of a Senior Intelligence Officer; by Peter Maurice Wright.

 

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The British government's efforts to block publication of Peter Wright's Spycatcher: Candid Autobiography of a Senior Intelligence Agent climaxed in a sensational trial in Australia in 1986 that cast a shadow of disrepute on the British legal system, the Official Secrets Act and the government itself.

The author of this engrossing, suspenseful account is the Australian attorney who represented Wright and his would-be Australian publisher.

Excerpts from the trial testimony reveal that Turnbull uncovered mendacity, hypocrisy and cynicism at the highest levels of the British government, principally during his cross-examination of Sir Robert Armstrong, cabinet secretary and adviser on intelligence matters.

In 1987 the High Court at Canberra dismissed the case and ordered the Thatcher government to reimburse legal costs to Wright and Heinemann Publishers Australia.

Turnbull calls the Britishers' conduct in the affair "quite disgraceful" and adds that the experience "galvanized my determination to see Australia rid herself of its sic remaining constitutional links with England."

[Daveo]

Heaven is so Real by Choo Thomas.

 

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Choo Thomas tells a remarkable story of her encounters with Jesus Christ, where she visited heaven many times and saw hell twice.

 

Her book, "Heaven is so Real" is more than just a book - it is Christ's loving message to a generation that has largely forgotten, misunderstood or is indifferent about Him.

 

This book will touch your heart and soul and will challenge you to live a life of obedience and purity like you have never done before.

found in the Fantasy section at Canterbury Tales Bookshop?

[Daveo]

The Art of Thinking Clearly by Rolf Dobelli.

 

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The Art of Thinking Clearly by world-class thinker and entrepreneur Rolf Dobelli is an eye opening look at human psychology and reasoning, essential reading for anyone who wants to avoid “cognitive errors” and make better choices in all aspects of their lives.

 

Have you ever: Invested time in something that, with hindsight, just wasn’t worth it?

Or continued doing something you knew was bad for you? These are examples of cognitive biases, simple errors we all make in our day to day thinking.

But by knowing what they are and how to spot them, we can avoid them and make better decisions.

 

Simple, clear, and always surprising, this indispensable book will change the way you think and transform your decision making, work, at home, every day.

It reveals, in 99 short chapters, the most common errors of judgment, and how to avoid them.

[Daveo]

Mafia and Organized Crime: A Beginner's Guide

by James O. Finckenauer.

 

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Ruthless, cruel, and irresistibly cool: the Mafia has always appealed to the darker side of the imagination.

But just what is the Mafia, how does it operate, and what can be done to combat it?

James Finckenauer debunks the romantic notions and mystique surrounding the Mafia to reveal the harsh realities of global organized crime in countries spanning from Japan to Russia to Colombia.

Demonstrating that organizations like the Mafia are multi-faceted and far more complex than imagined, he argues that organized crime destabilises society on a global scale, perpetuating untold economic, physical, psychological, and societal damage through its control of criminal markets, violence and corruption.

Providing vital insight into a hidden world, Mafia: A Beginner’s Guide is ideal reading for anyone intrigued by, or concerned about, this widely misunderstood phenomenon.

James Finckenauer has written extensively on organized crime. He is a Distinguished Professor at the School of Criminal Justice, Rutgers University, and former Director of the National Institute of Justice, Washington DC.

[Daveo]

Palimpsest: A Memoir by Gore Vidal.

 

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This is a memoir of the first 40 years of Gore Vidal's life, ranging back and forth across a rich history.

He spent his childhood in Washington DC, in the household of his grandfather, the blind senator from Oklahoma, T.P. Gore, and in the various domestic situations of his complicated and exasperating mother, Nina.

Then come schooldays at St Albans and Exeter; the army; life as a literary wunderkind in New York, London, Rome and Paris in the '40s and '50s; sex in an age of promiscuity; and a campaign for Congress in 1960.

His cast includes Tennessee Williams, the Kennedys, Eleanor Roosevelt, Truman Capote, Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward, Christopher Isherwood, Jack Kerouac, Jane and Paul Bowles, Santayana, Anais Nin, Norman Mailer, Leonard Bernstein and the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, among others.

[Daveo]

Bangkok, Angelic Allusions by Barry Bell.

 

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Cities today, especially those undergoing rapid growth and transformation, seem to defy traditional principles of urbanism and urban analysis.

Bangkok, the City of Angels, the capital of Thailand, and an international metaphor of development gone wrong, presents an extreme version of this condition.

Indeed, Bangkok, a barely stable setting for its (over) twelve million inhabitants, challenges our perceptions of what a city is, or should be.

Yet in spite of its chaotic state Bangkok also presents moments of arresting beauty and social intensity.

These fragments suggest a potential other city, resting latent within the cacophonous distractions of daily life.

The resultant urban mirage is a compelling provocation.

 

Bangkok: Angelic Allusions uses the tangible artifacts of the city, its topography, streets and monuments, as vehicles for speculating on Bangkok and its central mythologies.

Significant in themselves, these physical objects or categories also bring structure to other more perceptual observations and speculations.

Ultimately the book links the city’s hectic urban sensibility to its more elusive and mysterious character, the dream of Bangkok which lurks within its physical reality.

 

[Daveo]

Tao of Natural Breathing: For Health, Well-Being and Inner Growth by Dennis Lewis.

 

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Dennis Lewis draws on his many years of study in the Gurdjieff Work, Advaita Vedanta, and Taoism to show how natural, whole body breathing can improve health, increase energy, and support the quest for inner growth.

Along with breathing practices designed to open the three primal energy centers, the book defines natural breathing; provides a clear, illustrated description of the physiology of breathing; and offers suggestions on how to use spacious breathing both in times of stress and in everyday life.

[Daveo]

The Final Days by Alex Chance.

 

Traded In recently @ Canterbury Tales Bookshop / Book exchange / Cafe / Guesthouse, Pattaya, Thailand.

 

Karen Wiley, recently qualified San Francisco psychologist, thought she understood moral dilemma.

Then an anonymous child cries to her for help.

No one Karen knows is in trouble, but the letters keep coming, then something far, far worse.

 

Until the horror in the True Blood trailer, Ella McCullers, police chief of Canaan, Utah, believed she knew crises of faith. Abruptly promoted to senior investigator in the state's most high profile kidnapping case, her only leads are a decaying tombstone, a missing cat, and a little mute girl with ghastly, formless nightmares.

 

In truth, it began with The Cult of the Final Days, and a long buried history of murder.

Now Karen Wiley must cross the desert wilderness to play a deadly game disguised as a righteous quest for the truth.

 

Powerful, hypnotic and terrifying, the Final Days is the stunning debut by a chillingly brilliant new voice in thriller writing.

[Daveo]

The Essential Thai Cookbook.

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From one of the world's leading experts on Thai cooking, comes the definitive cookbook for this increasingly popular cuisine. 
The Essential Thai Cookbook demystifies Thai cooking with simple, clear recipes that are easy to follow and totally authentic. With detailed descriptions and close up images of the exotic ingredients, each chapter concentrates on a group of the spices, herbs, and sauces that make up the rich flavors of Thailand's regional cuisines.