Canterbury Tales Guesthouse

[Daveo]

The Book of Lies by Brad Meltzer.

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In Chapter Four of the Bible, Cain kills Abel. 
It is the world's most famous murder. 
But the Bible is silent about one key detail: the weapon Cain used to kill his brother. 
That weapon is still lost to history.
In 1932, Mitchell Siegel was killed by three gunshots to his chest. 
While mourning, his son dreamed of a bulletproof man and created the world's greatest hero: Superman. 
And like Cain's murder weapon, the gun used in this unsolved murder has never been found.
Today in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, Cal Harper comes face-to-face with his own family tragedy: his long-missing father has been shot with a gun that traces back to Mitchell Siegel's 1932 murder. 
But soon after their surprising reunion, Cal and his father are attacked by a ruthless killer tattooed with the ancient markings of Cain.

So begins the chase for the world's first murder weapon. It is a race that will pull Cal back into his own past even as it propels him forward through the true story of Cain and Abel, an eighty-year-old unsolvable puzzle, and the deadly organization known for the past century as the Leadership.

What does Cain, history's greatest villain, have to do with Superman, the world's greatest hero? 
And what do two murders, committed thousands of years apart, have in common?
This is the mystery at the heart of Brad Meltzer's new thriller.

[Daveo]

At Home: A short history of private life by Bill Bryson.

 

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What does history really consists of?

Centuries of people quietly going about their daily business sleeping, eating, having sex, endeavouring to get comfortable.

And where did all these normal activities take place?

At home.

 

This was the thought that inspired Bill Bryson to start a journey around the rooms of his own house, an 1851 Norfolk rectory, to consider how the ordinary things in life came to be. And what he discovered are surprising connections to anything from the Crystal Palace to the Eiffel Tower, from scurvy to body-snatching,from bedbugs to the Industrial Revolution, and just about everything else that has ever happened, resulting in one of the most entertaining and illuminating books ever written about the history of the way we live.

[Daveo]

Nation; by Terry Pratchett.

 

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Alone on a desert island, everything and everyone he knows and loves has been washed away in a storm.

Mau is the last surviving member of his nation, he’s completely alone, or so he thinks until he finds the ghost girl. She has no toes, wears strange lacy trousers like the grandfather bird, and gives him a stick that can make fire.

Daphne, sole survivor of the wreck of the Sweet Judy, almost immediately regrets trying to shoot the native boy.

Thank goodness the powder was wet and the gun only produced a spark.

She’s certain her father, distant cousin of the Royal family, will come and rescue her but it seems, for now, that all she has for company is the boy and the foul-mouthed ship’s parrot, until other survivors arrive to take refuge on the island.

Together, Mau and Daphne discover some remarkable things (including how to milk a pig, and why spitting in beer is a good thing), and start to forge a new nation.

 

Encompassing themes of death and nationhood, Terry Pratchett’s novel is, as can be expected, extremely funny, witty and wise.

Mau’s ancestors have something to teach us all.

Mau just wishes they would shut up about it and let him get on with saving everyone’s lives!

[Daveo]

The Curse of Brink's-Mat: Twenty-five Years of Murder and Mayhem - The Inside Story of the 20th Century's Most Lucrative Armed Robbery by Wensley Clarkson.

 

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'It wasn't only Britain's biggest heist, it became the bloodiest' Mail on Sunday

 

The inside story of the 20th century's most lucrative armed robbery.

 

On 26 November 1983 six armed robbers escaped with £28 million worth of gold bullion from a Brink's-Mat warehouse at London's Heathrow Airport.

The Curse of Brink's-Mat reveals the pulse-racing full story of the crime itself before moving to its chilling aftermath, which still reverberates to this day.

The heist made the careers of many of the underworld's biggest names, and changed the face of British crime forever but in the years that followed the robbery, many of those involved, innocent and guilty alike have been sent to an early grave.

Two decades on, the death toll is still rising.

 

Nobody knows more about that extraordinary morning's events than Wensley Clarkson.

Nobody is better placed to track the vicious, violent and unexpected waves that followed in its wake or bring to life its cast of larger-than-life characters.

From small-time crime in south-east London, to 'the heist of the century' and its bloody consequences, Wensley Clarkson's The Curse of Brink's-Mat is an epic tale of villainy, gold and revenge.

[Daveo]

The Execution by Dick Wolf.

 

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NYPD Detective Jeremy Fisk, introduced in Law & Order creator Dick Wolf’s, debut The Intercept, must stop an assassin in the pay of a shadowy cartel in The Execution, a tense thriller that superbly blends suspense, politics, intrigue and high-flying action in the tradition of Vince Flynn, David Baldacci, and Robert Crais.

Soon after the Mexican presidential election, twenty-three bodies are discovered beheaded on the United States border, each marked with a unique symbol, a carving of a hummingbird.

Detective Cecilia Garza of the Mexican intelligence agency recognizes it as the signature of Chuparosa, an assassin feared for his cunning and brutality.

The fierce and intense detective has been pursuing the killer for years, yet knows little about him, except that he's heading to New York, with the rest of the world.

It's United Nations Week in Manhattan and Jeremy Fisk can't let grief over a devastating loss keep him from his duty to safeguard the city.

Complicating matters is news of a mass murder nearby and the arrival of the disturbingly beautiful and assertive Cecilia Garza, determined to do things her way.

 

In the race to catch Chuparosa, these uneasy allies must learn to work together, and fast.

As they soon discover, there's more to this threat than meets the eye and Fisk will have to learn the hard way that justice is not always blind.

[Daveo]

Killer's Wedge by Ed McBain.

 

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A woman holds the entire 87th Precinct hostage with a homemade bomb and loaded handgun, but her only real target is none other than Detective Steve Carella.

“McBain forces us to think twice about every character we meet…even those we thought we already knew. “The 87th Precinct is one of the great literary accomplishments of the last half-century.”

[Daveo]

Detour and Derailed (Omnibus) by James Siegel.

 

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Derailed

The day New York advertising director Charles Schine misses his train is the day that changes his life.

Catching the 9.05 instead, he can't help but be drawn by the sight of the person opposite.

And though Lucinda is married too, it is immediately apparent that the feeling is mutual.

They both know the risks they are taking, but not in their worst nightmares could they foresee what is to follow.

Suddenly their illicit liaison becomes caught up in something bigger, more dangerous, more brutally violent.

Charles finds himself trapped in a world of dark conspiracy and psychological games, and somehow he's got to find a way to fight back, or his entire life will be spectacularly derailed for good...

 

Detour

The small girl chasing a pink balloon in Central Park inspired childless Paul and Joanna to adopt, and soon they are travelling to the Santa Regina orphanage in Colombia, to meet their new daughter, Joelle.

But Columbia is a dangerous place, particularly for a foreigner with a wife and daughter to protect.

Paul suddenly finds himself with eighteen hours to get a deadly consignment to an address in New York.

He dare not be late. He dare not dial 911. Because if the delivery doesn't arrive, he'll never see his newly created family ever again . . .

[Daveo]

Guilt by Degrees by Marcia Clark.

 

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Someone has been watching D.A. Rachel Knight, someone who's Rachel's equal in brains, but with more malicious intentions.

It began when a near-impossible case fell into Rachel's lap, the suspectless homicide of a homeless man.

In the face of courthouse backbiting and a gauzy web of clues, Rachel is determined to deliver justice.

She's got back-up: tough-as-nails Detective Bailey Keller.

As Rachel and Bailey stir things up, they're shocked to uncover a connection with the vicious murder of an LAPD cop a year earlier.

Something tells Rachel someone knows the truth, someone who'd kill to keep it secret.

 

Harrowing, smart, and riotously entertaining, GUILT BY DEGREES is a thrilling ride through the world of LA courts with the unforgettable Rachel Knight.

[Daveo]

Shanghai Redemption by Qiu Xiaolong.

 

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"The system has no place for a cop who puts justice above the interests of the Party. It's a miracle that I survived as long as I did."

 

For years, Chen Cao managed to balance the interests of the Communist Party and the promises made by his job.

He was both a Chief Inspector of Special Investigations of the Shanghai Police Department and the deputy party secretary of the bureau.

He was considered a potential rising star in the Party until, after one too many controversial cases that embarrassed powerful elements in the Party,

Chen Cao found himself neutralized.

Under the guise of a major promotion, a new position with a substantial title but no power, he's stripped of his job duties and isolated.

But that's still not enough, as it becomes increasingly clear that someone is attempting to set him up, for public disgrace and possibly worse.

 

Chen Cao is technically in charge of the corruption case of a "Red Prince" a powerful, high Party figure who embodies the ruthless ambition, greed, and corruption that is increasingly evident in the new China.

This "Red Prince" has the kind of connections and power to deflect any attempts to bring him to justice.

Now with no power, few allies, and with his own reputation on the line, the former Inspector Chen is facing the most dangerous investigation of his career, and his life.

[Daveo]

The Missing and the Dead by Stuart MacBride.

 

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One mistake can cost you everything…

 

When you catch a twisted killer there should be a reward, right?

What Acting Detective Inspector Logan McRae gets instead is a ‘development opportunity’ out in the depths of rural Aberdeenshire. Welcome to divisional policing, catching drug dealers, shop lifters, vandals and the odd escaped farm animal.

 

Then a little girl’s body washes up just outside the sleepy town of Banff, kicking off a massive manhunt.

The Major Investigation Team is up from Aberdeen, wanting answers, and they don’t care who they trample over to get them.

 

Logan’s got enough on his plate keeping B Division together, but DCI Steel wants him back on her team.

As his old colleagues stomp around the countryside, burning bridges, Logan gets dragged deeper and deeper into the investigation.

 

One thing’s clear: there are dangerous predators lurking in the wilds of Aberdeenshire, and not everyone’s going to get out of this alive…

[Daveo]

Ugly Americans by Ben Mezrich.

 

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The true story of the Ivy League hedge fund cowboys who gambled with the dangerously high stakes of the Asian stock market.

 

Ugly Americans tells Malcolm's story, and that of others like him, in a high octane book, filled with glamour, money and the dangers these incur, this true story is a cross between Mezrich's own best selling Bringing Down the House and Michael Lewis' Liar's Poker.shing waves of the Asian stock markets, gambling at impossibly high stakes and winning. Failure meant not only bankruptcy and disgrace à la Nick Leeson, but potentially even death, at the hands of the Japanese Yakuza: one of the world's most notoriously violent organised crime syndicates.

 

Ugly Americans tells Malcolm's story, and that of others like him, in a high octane book, filled with glamour, money and the dangers these incur, this true story is a cross between Mezrich's own best selling Bringing Down the House and Michael Lewis' Liar's Poker.

[Daveo]

The Potter's Field by Andrea Camilleri.

 

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Witty and entertaining, the Montalbano novels by Andrea Camilleri, a master of the Italian detective story, have become favorites of mystery fans everywhere.

In this latest installment, an unidentified corpse is found near Vigàta, a town known for its soil rich with potter's clay. Meanwhile, a woman reports the disappearance of her husband, a Colombian man with Sicilian origins who turns out to be related to a local mobster.

Then Inspector Montalbano remembers the story from the Bible, Judas's betrayal, the act of remorse, and the money for the potter's field, where those of unknown or foreign origin are to be buried-and slowly, through myriad betrayals, finds his way to the solution to the crime.

[Daveo]

Becoming Teddy Roosevelt: How a Maine Guide Inspired America's 26th President by Andrew Vietze.

 

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A sickly Harvard student.

A Maine Guide.

And a friendship that changed a man who changed a nation.

Today we think of Theodore Roosevelt as a larger than life figure, but before he became a legendary outdoorsman, Badlands rancher, Rough Rider, trust buster, and political maverick, he was a "thin pale youngster with bad eyes and a weak heart," in the words of William Wingate Sewall, the upcountry Maine woodsman who would become Roosevelt's mentor and lifelong friend.

The two met at a crucial time in Roosevelt's life, and Sewall exerted a quiet but profound influence on the man who would become America's twenty-sixth President.

This is the untold story of their friendship and the many adventures they shared.

[Daveo]

Portobello by Ruth Rendell.

 

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On a shopping trip, Eugene Wren came across an envelope containing money.

Rather than report the matter to the police, he wrote a note and stuck it up on lamppost near his house: found in Chepstow Villas, a sum of money between 80 and 160 pounds.

Anyone who has lost such a sum should apply to the phone number below.

[Daveo]

Hiroshima by John Hersey.

 

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When the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima in August 1945, killing 100,000 men, women and children, a new era in human history opened.

Written only a year after the disaster, John Hersey brought the event vividly alive with this heartrending account of six men and women who survived despite all the odds.

A further chapter was added when, forty years later, he returned to Hiroshima to discover how the same six people had struggled to cope with catastrophe and with often crippling disease.

The result is a devastating picture of the long term effects of one bomb.

[Daveo]

The Men in Black: Inside Manchester United's Football Hooligan Firm by Tony O'Neill;

 

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From the late Eighties to the new Millennium, one football gang dominated the streets and terraces.

Older, harder and better organised than their foes, they travelled everywhere and feared no-one.

After one spectacular victory, a vanquished rival gave them the name that became a byword for soccer violence: The Men In Black.

Manchester United's hooligan mob had long caused mayhem, but in 1989 their hardcore was the target of a massive undercover police investigation, codenamed Operation Mars. It focused on the most infamous of the firm's members, including its `general', Tony O'Neill, and led to more than thirty arrests.

 

But when the trial collapsed, the firm returned to the fray, wiser, more cunning and more ruthless than ever before.

They went on to defend their fearsome reputation against the toughest outfits in Britain; the Soul Crew, the Zulu Warriors, the Boro Frontline and the ICF. They were never defeated.

 

Covering the crucial period 1988 - 2005, The Men In Black recounts these stories and many more, told by those who were there, those who were involved in the hand to hand, close quarter battles and notably, the man police called Target Kilo: Tony O'Neill.

[Daveo]

Hell's Prisoner: Jailed for over Eleven Years in Indonesia's Most Notorious Prisons by Christopher V. V. Parnell.

 

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Prepare yourself for a journey into the Indonesian penal system.

A world where murder, torture and fights to the death are the norm.

Where the guards turn a blind eye to the lethal weapons prisoners carry ...and use almost daily.

Hell's Prisoner is the powerful story of one man's battle to survive in some of the world's cruellest and most inhumane prisons.

Christopher Parnell, wrongly accused of drug trafficking, found himself catapulted into the maelstrom of madness and degradation that exists within Indonesian jails.

Surrounded by murderers and sadistic violent criminals, he soon learned that life can be as cheap as a bowl of rice or a cigarette.

During his imprisonment, Parnell was subjected to unthinkable sessions of torture, both physical and psychological.

Left to starve and fight every day for his survival, he was forced to eat everything from cockroaches to human flesh. This is an incredible tale of fatalism and bureaucracy, of corruption and the horrors of prison, but most of all it is a no holds barred account of what the human spirit can endure.

[Daveo]

The Mill on the Floss by George Eliot.

 

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Maggie and Tom Tulliver are both wilful, passionate children, and their relationship has always been tempestuous.

As they grow up together on the banks of the River Floss, Tom's self righteous stubbornness and Maggie's emotional intensity increasingly brings them into conflict, particularly when Maggie's beauty sparks some ill-fated attachments. George Eliot's story of a brother and sister bound together by their errors and affections is told with tenderness, energy and a profound understanding of human nature.

[Daveo]

Ashes by Ilsa J. Bick.

 

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Alex has run away and is hiking through the wilderness with her dead parents' ashes, about to say goodbye to the life she no longer wants to live.

But then the world suddenly changes.

An electromagnetic pulse sweeps through the sky zapping every electronic device and killing the vast majority of adults. For those spared, it's a question of who can be trusted and who has changed...

 

Everyone still alive has turned, some for the better; those who acquired a superhuman sense, while others for the worse, those who acquired a taste for human flesh.

Desperate to find out what happened and to avoid the zombies that are on the hunt, Alex meets up with Tom, an Army veteran who escaped one war only to find something worse at home and Ellie, a young girl whose grandfather was killed by the electromagnetic pulse.

 

This improvised family will have to use every ounce of courage they have just to find food, shelter, while fighting off the 'Changed' and those desperate to stay alive.

 

A tense and involving adventure with shocks and sudden plot twists that will keep teen and adult readers gripped.

[Daveo]

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These and many more Travel guides available in store now.

Edited June 15, 2017 by Daveo

[Daveo]

Tallulah Bankhead, Scandalous Life by David Bret.

 

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Marlene Dietrich called her 'The most immoral woman who ever lived', Cecil Beaton described her as a 'wicked archangel' Born in Alabama in 1903, she became a big star in London in the early 1920's.

Branded 'an unsafe and unsavory person' by the Hays commission in the early 1930's.

In this highly entertaining book David Bret tells Tallulah's story in the only way it could be told: with shocking honesty and wit. What emerges is a vivid portrait of an immoral and wicked woman who was every inch a star and remains one of the greatest legends this century has ever seen.

[Daveo]

Partisans by Alistair MacLean.

 

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In wartime, people are either friends of enemies.

In wartime, friends are friends and enemies die.

 

PARTISANS

When Tito's rebel forces resist occupation, the Germans infiltrate and plan their destruction.

 

PARTISANS

Three Yugoslavs set out from Rome to relay the German battle plan, but their loyalties lie elsewhere.

 

PARTISANS

A dangerous journey with dangerous companions

where no one is who they seem

where the three men find intrigue and betrayal around every corner..

[Daveo]

Diary of a Drug Fiend by Aleister Crowley.

 

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Diary of a Drug Fiend was Aleister Crowley's first published novel.

To the reader of 1922 it presented a shocking look at a little known phenomenon.

Today, while we are more familiar with drugs because of their widespread use in our culture, Diary of a Drug Fiend remains one of the most intense, detailed and accurate accounts of drug addiction and the drug experience.

 

The book was written by Crowley after years of deep personal study and experimentation with drugs.

It is the story of a young man and woman who fall madly in love and whirl through Europe in a frenzied haze of heroin/cocaine adventure.

Their ecstasy is brought to an abrupt end when their drug supply is cut off and despair replaces joy.

Through the guidance of King Lamus, a master Adept, they free themselves from the entanglements of addition by the application of practical Magick.

 

The narrative carries the reader aloft through the brilliance of the imagery created by this master of language; his prose development parallels the growth and increasing depth of his characters in an uncanny fashion.

This is a book to be read and reread.

It will also prove a useful document to doctors, lawyers, police and addicts for its unique and precise presentation of the psychology of addiction and the possibility of its cure through the development of the True Will.

[Daveo]

Sea of Ghosts” by Alan Campbell.

 

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PLOT SUMMARY: When the last of the Gravediggers, an elite imperial infiltration unit, are disbanded and hunted down by the emperor they once served, Colonel Thomas Granger takes refuge in the unlikeliest of places.

He becomes a jailer in Ethugra, a prison city of poison-flooded streets and gaols in which enemies of the Empire are held captive.

But when Granger takes possession of two new prisoners, he realizes that he can’t escape his past so easily.

 

Ianthe is a young girl with an extraordinary psychic talent.

A gift that makes her unique in a world held ransom by the powerful Haurstaf , a sisterhood of telepaths who are all that stand between mankind and the threat of the Unmer, a powerful civilization of entropic sorcerers and dragon-mounted warriors.

In this war-torn land, Ianthe promises to make Granger an extremely wealthy man, if he can only keep her safe from harm.

 

This is what Granger is best at. But when other factions learn about Ianthe's unique ability, even Granger's skills of warfare are tested to their limits.

While Ianthe struggles to control the powers that are growing in ways no one thought possible, another threat is surfacing one who, if not stopped, will drown the world and all of humanity with it...

[Daveo]

The Brothers Boswell; by Philip Baruth.

 

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The year is 1763.

Twenty-two-year-old James Boswell of Edinburgh is eager to advance himself in London society.

Today his sights are set on furthering his acquaintance with Dr. Samuel Johnson, famed for his Dictionary; they are going to take a boat across the Thames to Greenwich Palace. Watching them secretly is John Boswell, James’ younger brother.

He has stalked his older brother for days.

Consumed with envy, John is planning to take revenge on his brother and Johnson for presumed slights.

He carries a pair of miniature pistols that fire a single golden bullet each, and there is murder in his heart.

 

Philip Baruth is an award-winning commentator for Vermont Public Radio and a graduate of Brown University with an MA and PhD from the University of California at Irvine.

His previous novel, The X President, received critical acclaim.

He teaches at the University of Vermont.