Canterbury Tales Guesthouse

[Daveo]

Laugh on the Loo.

 

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A book of bog standard humour.

 

[Daveo]

Jimmy the Weed by Jimmy Donnelly.

 

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Jimmy Donnelly is an underworld legend.

Known to all as Jimmy the Weed, he has mixed with the most notorious gangsters in Britain and the Costa del Crime in a criminal career spanning five decades.

He has been arrested on suspicion of serious crimes and faced numerous Crown Court trials and walked free from them all.

Most infamously, Jimmy was a key figure in the Quality Street Gang, a group targeted for years by Manchester Police.

In this explosive autobiography, Jimmy tells how he rose from humble beginnings to become the biggest illicit ticket agent in the North.

 

[Daveo]

Nasher Says Relax by Brian Nash.

 

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FRANKIE SAYS was the message and people listened.

Now Brian Nash recounts a behind the scenes story that magically recreates the meteoric rise of Frankie Goes To Hollywood from the struggling days of obscurity playing local Liverpool clubs to a record-breaking run of chart hits around the world.

Nobody could have possibly imagined the notoriety and fame that Frankie would create.

One of the biggest bands of the 1980s, they became only the second act in the history of the UK charts to reach number one with their first three singles; Relax, Two Tribes and Power of Love.

 

[Daveo]

Bruce by Peter Ames Carlin.

 

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Peter Ames Carlin’s bestselling biography of one America’s greatest musicians is the first in twenty-five years to be written with the cooperation of Bruce Springsteen himself; “Carlin gets across why Mr. Springsteen has meant so much, for so long, to so many people”.

 

In Bruce, acclaimed music writer Peter Ames Carlin presents a startlingly intimate and vivid portrait of a rock icon.

For more than four decades, Bruce Springsteen has reflected the heart and soul of America with a career that includes twenty Grammy Awards, more than 120 million albums sold, two Golden Globes, and an Academy Award.

Peter Ames Carlin masterfully encompasses the breadth of Springsteen’s astonishing career and explores the inner workings of a man who managed to redefine generations of music.

 

A must read for fans, Bruce is a meticulously researched, compulsively readable biography of a man laden with family tragedy, a tremendous dedication to his artistry, and an all consuming passion for fame and influence.

 

[Daveo]

THE VOW ON THE HERON by Jean Plaidy.

 

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Edward the Second has been barbarously murdered in Berkeley Castle on the orders of his wife Queen Isabella and her lover, and 15-year-old Edward the Third is now king.

Young Edward has already fallen in love with Phillipa of Hainault and, to prevent him enquiring into the details of his father's death, Isabella allows the marriage to take place.

While some suggest that Edward has a claim on the French throne, he is reluctant to pursue it.

It is only when Robert of Artois arrives that the king is provoked into action.

When Robert presents Edward with a dead heron and compares him tauntingly to the timid bird, Edward vows to attack France, heralding the beginning of the Hundred Years' War..

 

[Daveo]

The Blackwater Lightship by Colm Toibin.

 

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This is the most astonishing piece of writing, lyrical in its emotion and spare in its construction . . . Tóibín has crafted an unmissable read’

In Blackwater in the early 1990s, three women, Dora Devereux, her daughter Lily and her granddaughter Helen, have come together after years of strife and reached an uneasy truce.

Helen’s adored brother Declan is dying.

Two friends join him and the women in a crumbling old house by the sea, where the six of them, from different generations and with different beliefs, must listen and come to terms with one another.

 

 

[Daveo]

City of Gold by Len Deighton.

 

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January 1942. Rommel’s seemingly invincible Afrika Korps is at the gates of Egypt, perhaps soon to threaten Cairo itself.

And Rommel has a spy in the city, a source so well-informed that the German commander knows in advance every movement of the allied forces.

 

Amongst the teeming streets and bazaars, the British, led by Major Albert Cutler, must find him.

But Cairo is a city of fool’s gold, where nothing and nobody, not even Cutler, can be taken at face value…

 

[Daveo]

Freedom highway by Nigel Krauth.

 

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Stephen Brasch, a young American lawyer working for the Rockefeller Foundation, comes to Thailand 'to do good' but discovers that 'good' can be interpreted in many ways, some of them fatal.

When Brasch blows the whistle on a scandalous plot involving Thai, British and American government officials, he finds himself face to face with a Prime Minister who is renowned for taking a gun out of his office drawer and using it.

 

[Daveo]

The Rule Of Four by Dustin Thomason & Ian Caldwell.

 

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Tom Sullivan is about to graduate from Princeton.

He's intelligent and popular, but haunted by the violent death several years earlier of his father, an academic who devoted his life to studying one of the rarest, most complex and most valuable books in the world.

Since its publication in 1499, the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili has baffled scholars who have tried to understand its many mysteries. Coded in seven languages, the text is at once a passionate love story, an intricate mathematical labyrinth, and a tale of arcane brutality.

Paul Harris, Tom's roommate, has deeply personal reasons of his own for wanting to unveil the Secrets the book hides.

When a long lost diary surfaces, it seems the two friends have found the key to the labyrinth, but when a fellow researcher is murdered only hours later, they suddenly find themselves in great danger.

And what they discover embedded in the text stuns them: a narrative detailing the passion of a Renaissance prince, a hidden crypt, and a secret worth dying to protect

 

[Daveo]

Kiss Me, Kill Me: Ann Rule's Crime Files Vol. 9 by Ann Rule.

 

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The dark side of love is no fairy tale.... And while we may like to believe that crimes of the heart only victimize those who aren't careful, this page-turning collection of must-read accounts will convince you otherwise.

America's #1 true-crime writer, Ann Rule reveals how lovers become predators, how sex and lust can push ordinary people to desperate acts, and how investigators and forensics experts work to unravel the most entangled crimes of passion.

Extracting behind-the-scenes details, Rule makes these volatile relationships utterly real, and masterfully re creates the ill fated chains of events in such cases as the ex Marine and martial arts master who seduced vulnerable women and then destroyed their lives...the killer whose calling card was a single blood red rose...the faithless wife who manipulated and murdered without conscience...the blind date that set the stage for a killer's brutality...and more.

In every case, the victim, young and innocent or older and experienced, unknowingly trusted a stranger with the sociopathic skill to hide their dark motives, until it was too late to escape a web of deadly lies, fatal promises, and homicidal possession.

 

[Daveo]

Magnificent Obsession: Victoria, Albert and the Death That Changed the Monarchy by Helen Rappaport.

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When Queen Victoria's husband, Prince Albert, died in December 1861 the nation was paralysed with grief.

His death was a catastrophe for Victoria, who not only adored her husband but had, through twenty one years of marriage, utterly relied on him: as companion, father of their children, friend, confidant, and unofficial private secretary. 
Without Albert to guide and support her, the Queen retreated into a state of pathological grief which nobody could penetrate and few understood.

Drawing widely on contemporary letters, diaries and memoirs, Rappaport brings new light to bear on the causes of Albert's death and tracks Victoria's mission to commemorate her husband in perpetuity. 
Richly compelling, this is the story of a magnificent obsession that even death could not sever.

 

The Man Who Missed the War by Dennis Wheatley.

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10 Sep 1937 - 6 Jun 1944
Philip Vaudell leaves the United States on a solitary raft. 
Instead of drifting into European waters, he is carried down to the Antarctic where, amidst its eternal snows, he discovers a large area with a warm climate and populated by a lost race who still practise human sacrifice.

With Philip was the other real trouble, in the enticing shape of red-headed Gloria, who had stowed away on his raft. 
Together they encounter perils in the true Wheatley tradition of adventure, rising to a terrific and truly satisfying climax.

At a time when German submarines were sinking so much Allied shipping that Britain faced the danger of starvation, Dennis Wheatley, then a member of the War Cabinet's Joint Planning Staff suggested that raft convoys, moved by the Gulf Stream and prevailing winds, should be used to float essential supplies across the Atlantic.

 

[Daveo]

The Silver Bear by Derek Haas.

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In the shadowy world of hitmen, one man stands alone.
His name is Columbus, they call him the Silver Bear, it means he will take on any assignment, complete it, and walk away clean.

Columbus thinks he is immune to the pressures of his chosen career. But fate intends to prove him different.

In these three novels, collected for the first time, Columbus finds himself in ever greater danger: a target, and on the run...

 

The Verdict by Nick Stone.

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Terry Flynt is a struggling legal clerk, desperately trying to get promoted and then he is given the biggest opportunity of his career: to help defend a millionaire accused of murdering a woman in his hotel suite.

The only problem is that the accused man, Vernon James, turns out to be not only someone he knows, but someone he loathes. 
This case could potentially make Terry's career, but how can he defend a former friend who betrayed him so badly?

With the trial date looming, Terry delves deeper into Vernon's life and is forced to confront Secrets from their shared past that could have devastating consequences for them both.
For years he has wanted to witness Vernon's downfall, but with so much at stake, how can Terry be sure that he is guilty? 
And what choices must he make to ensure that justice is done?

 

The Big Picture by Douglas Kennedy.

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On the face of it, Ben Bradford is your standard Wall Street hot shot Junior partner in a legal firm, 6 figure income, wife and two young kids straight out of a Gap catalogue. 
But along with the WASP lifestyle comes the sting, Ben hates it. 
He wants, has always wanted, to be a photographer. 
When he discovers his wife is playing outside the ground, the consequences of a moment of madness force him to question not just the design of his life but the price of fulfilment.
Because finding yourself means nothing when you're pretending to be someone else. 
From the picket fences of yuppie New England to Montana's untouchable splendour, THE BIG PICTURE spans states and states of mind in a thrilling novel of genuine originality.

[Daveo]

A Dangerous Fortune; by Ken Follett.

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In 1866, tragedy strikes at the exclusive Windfield School. 
A young student drowns in a mysterious accident involving a small circle of boys. 
The drowning and its aftermath initiates a spiraling circle of treachery that will span three decades and entwine many loves... From the exclusive men's club and brothels that cater to every dark Desire of London's upper classes to the dazzling ballrooms and mahogany paneled suites of the manipulators of the world's wealth, Ken Follett conjures up a stunning array of contrasts. 
This breathtaking novel portrays a family splintered by lust, bound by a shared legacy, men and women swept toward a perilous climax where greed, fed by the shocking truth of a boy's death, must be stopped, or not just one man's dreams, but those of a nation, will die...

[Daveo]

Island by Richard Laymon.

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When eight people go on a cruise in the Bahamas, they plan to swim, sunbathe and relax. 
Getting shipwrecked is definitely not in the script. 
But after the yacht blows up they're stranded on a deserted island, and there's a maniac on the loose.

Culture shock Southeast Asia & the Orient.
Includes; Burma/Myanmar - Cambodia - China - Hong Kong - Indonesia - Japan - Laos - Malaysia - Philippines - Singapore - South Korea - Taiwan - Thailand - Vietnam.
In Now @ Canterbury Tales Bookshop / Book exchange / Cafe, Pattaya.

Many good tips on Thailand and Southeast Asia, 
How to? what to? Warnings? Money, Culture and much more.
brand new; includes Pattaya maps....*****180 baht*****

[Daveo]

The Mammoth Book of True War Stories: A New Selection of 60 Unforgettable Accounts of the Horror and Heroism of War Across the Ages by Jon E. Lewis.

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War, as the general said, is hell. 
But sometimes it also brings out the best in people, as illustrated by this gripping new collection of war writing. 
From the siege of Troy to the present day, historian Jon E. Lewis offers a new selection of sixty unforgettable accounts, many firsthand of the horror and heroism of war. 
These include analyses by celebrated historians, letters home by ordinary GIs, high adrenaline memoirs by frontline combatants and memorable reportage by master chroniclers.
Ernest Hemingway on bombings in Madrid, Tim O'Brien on Vietnam, John Reed on the Mexican Revolution and Winston Churchill on the Battle of Omdurman.

The Queen of Patpong: A Poke Rafferty Thriller 
by Timothy Hallinan.

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Author Timothy Hallinan returns to Bangkok, Thailand and plunges his protagonist, travel writer Poke Rafferty, into graver peril than ever before in The Queen of Patpong, Hallinan’s fourth Rafferty thriller following A Nail Through the Heart, 
The Fourth Watcher and Breathing Water. 
Fans of Dean Barrett, John Burdett, Alexander McCall Smith, Daniel Silva, and Alan Furst who love being transported to exotic locales will be riveted when a nightmare figure from the past arrives at Poke Rafferty’s door to bring chaos and danger to the lives of the people he loves.

 

Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts.

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A novel of high adventure, great storytelling and moral purpose, based on an extraordinary true story of eight years in the Bombay underworld.

'In the early 80s, Gregory David Roberts, an armed robber and heroin addict, escaped from an Australian prison to India, where he lived in a Bombay slum. There, he established a free health clinic and also joined the mafia, working as a money launderer, forger and street soldier. He found time to learn Hindi and Marathi, fall in love, and spend time being worked over in an Indian jail. Then, in case anyone thought he was slacking, he acted in Bollywood and fought with the Mujahedeen in Afghanistan . . . Amazingly, Roberts wrote Shantaram three times after prison guards trashed the first two versions. It's a profound tribute to his willpower . . . At once a high-kicking, eye-gouging adventure, a love saga and a savage yet tenderly lyrical fugitive vision.'

 

[Daveo]

The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga.

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Balram Halwai is the White Tiger, the smartest boy in his village. 
His family is too poor for him to afford for him to finish school and he has to work in a teashop, breaking coals and wiping tables. 
But Balram gets his break when a rich man hires him as a chauffeur, and takes him to live in Delhi. 
The city is a revelation, as he drives his master to shopping malls and call centres, Balram becomes increasingly aware of immense wealth and opportunity all around him, while knowing that he will never be able to gain access to that world. 
As Balram broods over his situation, he realizes that there is only one way he can become part of this glamorous new India, by murdering his master.

The White Tiger presents a raw and un-romanticised India, both thrilling and shocking, from the desperate, almost lawless villages along the Ganges, to the booming Wild South of Bangalore and its technology and outsourcing centres. 
The first-person confession of a murderer, The White Tiger is as compelling for its subject matter as for the voice of its narrator amoral, cynical, unrepentant, yet deeply endearing.

 

 

 

Quick & Easy Thai: 70 Everyday Recipes by Nancie McDermott.

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Now busy home cooks can bring the fantastic flavors of Thai cuisine into the kitchen with a simple trip to the grocery store. 
Nancie McDermott, experienced cook, teacher, and author of the best-selling cookbook Real Thai, presents this collection of 70 delicious recipes that focus on easy to find ingredients and quick cooking methods to whip up traditional Thai. 
With recipes like Crying Tiger Grilled Beef, Grilled Shrimp and Scallops with Lemongrass, Sticky Rice with Mangoes and Thai Iced Tea, along with McDermott's highly practical array of shortcuts, substitutions, and timesaving techniques, anyone can prepare home-cooked authentic Thai meals, as often as they like.

American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis.

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Patrick Bateman is twenty six and works on Wall Street; he is handsome, sophisticated, charming and intelligent. 
He is also a psychopath. 
American Psycho is a bleak, bitter, black comedy about a world we all recognize but do not wish to face and it takes us on a head-on collision with America's greatest dream and its worst nightmare.

[Daveo]

Partners in Crime A novel by Shamini Flint.

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The Asian Crime Fiction series features contemporary crime fiction set against a uniquely Asian backdrop. 
From the pristine streets of Singapore to the back alleys of Kuala Lumpur, the unusual tensions lurking beneath the surface of Asian society explode into conflict and murder. 
Expatriate lawyers, local policemen and foreign workers are all thrown together in a murder investigation that rips apart the fabric of Singapore society and exposes the rotten core beneath.

Hitman Anders and the Meaning of It All 2016 by Jonas Jonasson.

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The bestselling novel from the author of The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out of the Window and The Girl Who Saved the King of Sweden
IT’S NEVER TOO LATE TO START AGAIN. AND AGAIN.

It’s always awkward when five thousand kronor goes missing. When it happens at a certain grotty hotel in south Stockholm, it’s particularly awkward because the money belongs to the hitman currently staying in room seven. 
Per Persson, the hotel receptionist, just wants to mind his own business, and preferably not get murdered. Johanna Kjellander, temporarily resident in room eight, is a priest without a vocation, and, as of last week, without a parish. But right now she has two things at her disposal: an envelope containing five thousand kronor, and an excellent idea . . .

Featuring one violent killer, two shrewd business brains and many crates of Moldovan red wine, Hitman Anders and the Meaning of It All is an outrageously zany story with as many laughs as Jonasson’s multimillion-copy bestseller The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out of the Window and Disappeared.

 

Fat, Fifty & F***ed!: A Fast & Furious Novel 
by Geoffrey McGeachin.

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Expletives in the title? Yeah, let's dash a few letters out, wouldn't want anyone to realise someone wrote a "naughty" word.

The story follows the adventure of Martin Carter, a bank manager in a small dying town. 
Martin's life is a huge disappointment, so instead of buying a sports car he robs his bank and goes on the run. 
Pursued by a security agency, meeting all sorts of interesting Aussie characters, and trying to find the elusive perfect breakfast, Martin does the midlife crisis in style.

As a long time fan of Geoff McGeachin's writing, it was a pleasure to pick up one of his humorous novels again, after reading his award winning Black Wattle Creek. 
Can't have humour in a book and have it win awards, there are rules, Fat, Fifty and Fucked is Geoff's first novel and sets the template for his irreverent, humorous, fun, and foodie writing style that his Alby Murdoch novels utilised.
 I also think Geoff captures the stereotypical Aussie characters and humour in a way that few other authors manage, even if some would find this off putting, despite how he doesn't go the full Alf Stewart.

 

Don't Tell Mum I Work on the Rigs, She Thinks I'm a Piano Player in a Whorehouse; by Paul Carter.

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A take no prisoners approach to life has seen Paul Carter heading to some of the world's most remote, wild and dangerous places as a contractor in the oil business. 
Amazingly, he's survived, to tell these stories from the edge of civilization, and reason.

[Daveo]

Face off by David Baldacci and many more.

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Edited by David Baldacci and including stories by Michael Connelly, Lee Child, Jeffrey Deaver, and more, this one of a kind anthology pulls together the most beloved characters from the best and most popular thriller series today. Worlds collide!

In an unprecedented collaboration, twenty three of the world’s bestselling and critically acclaimed thriller writers have paired their series characters such as Harry Bosch, Jack Reacher, and Lincoln Rhyme in an eleven-story anthology curated by the International Thriller Writers (ITW). 
All of the contributors to FaceOff are ITW members and the stories feature these dynamic duos:

· Harry Bosch vs. Patrick Kenzie in “Red Eye,” by Michael Connelly and Dennis Lehane

· John Rebus vs. Roy Grace in “In the Nick of Time,” by Ian Rankin and Peter James

· Slappy the Ventriloquist Dummy vs. Aloysius Pendergast in “Gaslighted,” by R.L. Stine, Douglas Preston, and Lincoln Child

· Malachai Samuels vs. D.D. Warren in “The Laughing Buddha,” by M.J. Rose and Lisa Gardner

· Paul Madriani vs. Alexandra Cooper in “Surfing the Panther,” by Steve Martini and Linda Fairstein

· Lincoln Rhyme vs. Lucas Davenport in “Rhymes With Prey,” by Jeffery Deaver and John Sandford

· Michael Quinn vs. Repairman Jack in “Infernal Night,” by Heather Graham and F. Paul Wilson

· Sean Reilly vs. Glen Garber in “Pit Stop,” by Raymond Khoury and Linwood Barclay

· Wyatt Hunt vs. Joe Trona in “Silent Hunt,” by John Lescroart and T. Jefferson Parker

· Cotton Malone vs. Gray Pierce in “The Devil’s Bones,” by Steve Berry and James Rollins

· Jack Reacher vs. Nick Heller in “Good and Valuable Consideration,” by Lee Child and Joseph Finder

So sit back and prepare for a rollicking ride as your favorite characters go head to head with some worthy opponents in FaceOff it’s a thrill a minute read.

 

[Daveo]

Lonely Planet Healthy Travel - Asia & India (pocketbook)

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Get the most out of your trip to Asia and India without throwing up over the side of a slow boat. 
This guide is freshly updated by travel health expert Dr Tony Gherardin and provides advice on immunisations, medical kits and what to do if you start to feel queasy.

Tailored advice for travellers of all ages and needs, clear advice on treating common travel illnesses, safety tips for outdoor activities, including diving and high altitude trekking, guide to traditional Asian medicine, comprehensive first-aid section. 
Lonely Planet gets you to the heart of a place, our job is to make amazing travel experiences happen. 
We visit the places we write about each and every edition,we never take freebies for positive coverage, so you can always rely on us to tell it like it is.

 

Restless Souls: Rebels, Refugees, Medics and Misfits on the Thai-Burma Border by Phil Thornton.

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Betrayed by the British, the Karen of Burma have been locked in a titanic, sixty-year struggle for survival against the Burmese military regime, their story ignored by the rest of the world. 
Journalist Phil Thornton spent five years on the Thai-Burma border, crossing illegally into the Karen State scores of times to find the families, freedom fighters, teachers, and medics resisting the regime.

Restless Souls is a tragic, sometimes amusing journey through the war zone and the underbelly of the Thai border town Mae Sot, where refugees, 'mercenary' adventurers, migrant workers, gem dealers, prostitutes, scavengers, rebel soldiers, corrupt officials, and drug dealers inhabit the shadows.

 

The Outsider by Geordan Murphy.

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Geordan Murphy does not come from the leafy suburbs of south Dublin or the rugby hotbeds of Limerick or Cork.
As a teenager he played Gaelic football for Kildare minors. 
But his greatest love, and his true genius, was for rugby.

Now nearing the end of a career that has seen him win over seventy Ireland caps, a number that a great many supporters and pundits believe should be considerably higher and attain the captaincy of the top English club, Leicester, Geordan Murphy tells his own story for the first time.

 

Black Echo (Harry Bosch Series) by Michael Connelly.

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LAPD detective Harry Bosch is a loner and a nighthawk. 
One Sunday he gets a call out on his pager. 
A body has been found in a drainage tunnel off Mulholland Drive, Hollywood.
 At first sight, it looks like a routine drugs overdose case, but the one new puncture wound amid the scars of old tracks leaves Bosch unconvinced. 
To make matters worse, Harry Bosch recognises the victim, Billy Meadows was a fellow 'tunnel rat' in Vietnam, running against the VC and the fear they all used to call the Black Echo. 
Bosch believes he let down Billy Meadows once before, so now he is determined to bring the killer to justice.

Black by Design: A 2-Tone Memoir by Pauline Black.

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Born in 1953 to Anglo Jewish/Nigerian parents, Pauline Black was subsequently adopted by a white, working class family in Romford. Never quite at home there, she escaped her small town background and discovered a different way of life, making music.

Lead singer for platinum-selling band The Selecter, Pauline Black was the Queen of British Ska. 
The only woman in a movement dominated by men, she toured with The Specials, Madness, Dexy's Midnight Runners when they were at the top of the charts and, sometimes, on their worst behaviour.

From childhood to fame, from singing to acting and broadcasting, from adoption to her recent search for her birth parents, Black By Design is a funny and enlightening story of music, race, family and roots.

 

[Daveo]

The Whistler (The Whistler #1) by John Grisham.

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We expect our judges to be honest and wise. 
Their integrity and impartiality are the bedrock of the entire judicial system.
We trust them to ensure fair trials, to protect the rights of all litigants, to punish those who do wrong, and to oversee the orderly and efficient flow of justice.

But what happens when a judge bends the law or takes a bribe? 
It’s rare, but it happens.

Lacy Stoltz is an investigator for the Florida Board on Judicial Conduct. 
She is a lawyer, not a cop, and it is her job to respond to complaints dealing with judicial misconduct. 
After nine years with the Board, she knows that most problems are caused by incompetence, not corruption.

But a corruption case eventually crosses her desk.
A previously disbarred lawyer is back in business with a new identity. 
He now goes by the name Greg Myers, and he claims to know of a Florida judge who has stolen more money than all other crooked judges combined. 
And not just crooked judges in Florida. All judges, from all states, and throughout U.S. history.

What’s the source of the ill-gotten gains?
It seems the judge was secretly involved with the construction of a large casino on Native American land. 
The Coast Mafia financed the casino and is now helping itself to a sizable skim of each month’s cash. 
The judge is getting a cut and looking the other way. It’s a sweet deal: Everyone is making money.

But now Greg wants to put a stop to it. 
His only client is a person who knows the truth and wants to blow the whistle and collect millions under Florida law. 
Greg files a complaint with the Board on Judicial Conduct, and the case is assigned to Lacy Stoltz, who immediately suspects that this one could be dangerous.

Dangerous is one thing. Deadly is something else.

 

Shinju (Sano Ichiro #1) by Laura Joh Rowland.

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When beautiful, wealthy Yukiko and low born artist Noriyoshi are found drowned together in a shinju, or ritual double suicide, everyone believes the culprit was forbidden love. 
Everyone but newly appointed yoriki Sano Ichiro.
Despite the official verdict and warnings from his superiors, the shogun's Most Honorable Investigator of Events, situations, and People suspects the deaths weren't just a tragedy; they were murder. 
Risking his family's good name and his own life, Sano will search for a killer across every level of society determined to find answers to a mystery no one wants solved. 
No one but Sano...
As subtle and beautiful as the culture it evokes, Shinju vividly re-creates a world of ornate tearooms and gaudy pleasure palaces, cloistered mountaintop convents and deathly prisons. 
Part love story, part mystery, Shinju is a tour that will dazzle and entertain all who enter its world.

[Daveo]

Avenger by Frederick Forsyth.

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A young American aid volunteer, Ricky Colenso, is brutally murdered in former Yugoslavia. 
His grandfather, the Canadian billionaire Steven Edmond, is bent on revenge. 
The quest to find Ricky's murderer leads Edmond to Cal Dexter, ex-Vietnam Special Forces, the one man who could bring the killer to justice. 
But what starts as a personal, domestic tragedy soon explodes into a terrifying drama on the centre stage of world terrorism.

From the battlefield of Vietnam via war torn Serbia to the jungles of Central America, Avenger is packed with riveting detail, breathtaking action and political suspense, while in Cal Dexter we meet an unforgettable hero in the most dynamic Forsyth tradition.

[Daveo]

Avenged by Jacqui Rose.

 

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Thrilling, dangerous and compulsive, Avenged is perfect for fans of Martina Cole and Kimberley Chambers.

 

You make a deal with the devil; you pay your dues…

 

Franny Doyle has always known that her father Patrick has been up to no good.

After all you don’t become one of London’s number one gangsters without ruffling a few feathers along the way.

Still, she adores her dad and she knows that he would lay down his life for her, she is his number one girl and he has taught her everything she knows.

 

But when something terrible happens to Patrick, Franny realises that he has some very dangerous enemies.

Delving into Patrick’s past, Franny becomes involved in a high-stakes game.

She’s not afraid.

Patrick has taught her to be a fighter and she’s determined to make him proud, even if it means paying the ultimate price, her own life.

 

Edited February 27, 2017 by Daveo

[Daveo]

Kiss Me, Kill Me: Ann Rule's Crime Files Vol. 9 by Ann Rule.

Traded in today @ Canterbury Tales Bookshop / Book exchange / Guesthouse / Cafe, Pattaya....

The dark side of love is no fairy tale.... And while we may like to believe that crimes of the heart only victimize those who aren't careful, this page-turning collection of must-read accounts will convince you otherwise.
America's #1 true-crime writer, Ann Rule reveals how lovers become predators, how sex and lust can push ordinary people to desperate acts, and how investigators and forensics experts work to unravel the most entangled crimes of passion. 
Extracting behind-the-scenes details, Rule makes these volatile relationships utterly real, and masterfully re creates the ill fated chains of events in such cases as the ex Marine and martial arts master who seduced vulnerable women and then destroyed their lives...the killer whose calling card was a single blood red rose...the faithless wife who manipulated and murdered without conscience...the blind date that set the stage for a killer's brutality...and more.
In every case, the victim, young and innocent or older and experienced, unknowingly trusted a stranger with the sociopathic skill to hide their dark motives, until it was too late to escape a web of deadly lies, fatal promises, and homicidal possession.

[Daveo]

The Call of the Weird: Travels in American Subcultures

by Louis Theroux.

 

Traded in today @ Canterbury Tales Bookshop / Book exchange / Guesthouse / Cafe, Pattaya....

 

No, it doesn't get much weirder than this: Thor Templar, Lord Commander of the Earth Protectorate, who claims to have killed ten aliens.

Or April, the Neo Nazi bringing up her twin daughters Lamb and Lynx (who have just formed a white-power folk group for kids called Prussian Blue), and her youngest daughter, Dresden.

For a decade now, Louis Theroux has been making programs about offbeat characters on the fringes of U.S. society.

Now he revisits the people who have most intrigued him to try to discover what motivates them, and why they believe the things they believe.

From his Las Vegas base (where else?), Theroux calls on these assorted dreamers, schemers, and outlaws and in the process finds out a little about the workings of his own mind.

What does it mean, after all, to be weird, or "to be yourself"?

Do we choose our beliefs or do our beliefs choose us?

And is there something particularly weird about Americans? America, prepare yourself for a hilarious look in the mirror that has already taken the rest of the English-speaking world by storm: "Paul Theroux's son writes with just as clear an eye for character and place as his father.... And he's funny.... Theroux's final analysis of American weirdness is true and new."

 

[Daveo]

The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith.

 

Traded in today @ Canterbury Tales Bookshop / Book exchange / Guesthouse / Cafe, Pattaya..

 

Fans around the world adore the best-selling No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series and its proprietor, Precious Ramotswe, Botswana’s premier lady detective.

In this charming series, Mma Ramotswe, with help from her loyal associate, Grace Makutsi, navigates her cases and her personal life with wisdom, good humor, and the occasional cup of tea.

 

This first novel in Alexander McCall Smith’s widely acclaimed The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency series tells the story of the delightfully cunning and enormously engaging Precious Ramotswe, who is drawn to her profession to “help people with problems in their lives.”

Immediately upon setting up shop in a small storefront in Gaborone, she is hired to track down a missing husband, uncover a con man, and follow a wayward daughter.

But the case that tugs at her heart, and lands her in danger, is a missing eleven year old boy, who may have been snatched by witchdoctors.

 

The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency received two Booker Judges’ Special Recommendations and was voted one of the International Books of the Year.