Harry is on a special mission. Detective Harry Hole arrives in a steaming hot Bangkok. The Norwegian ambassador has been found dead in a seedy motel room, and Harry has been sent to investigate. It's clear that the Ambassador's family are hiding some secrets of their own, but few people are willing to talk. He needs to solve a crime and avoid a scandal. When Harry lays hands on some incriminating CCTV footage, things only get more complicated. The man who gave him the tape goes missing, and Harry realises that failing to solve a murder case is by no means the only danger that faces the unwary. But in an unfamiliar city, who can you trust?

'On the kibbutz it's hard to know. We're all supposed to be friends but very few really are.' Amos Oz's compelling new fiction offers revelatory glimpses into the secrets and frustrations of the human heart, played out by a community of misfits united by political disagreement, intense dissatisfaction and lifetimes of words left unspoken. Ariella, unhappy in love, confides in the woman whose husband she stole; Nahum, a devoted father, can't find the words to challenge his daughter's promiscuous lover; the old idealists deplore the apathy of the young, while the young are so used to kibbutz life that they can't work out if they're impassioned or indifferent. Arguments about war, government, travel and children are feverishly taken up and quickly abandoned — and amid this group of people unwilling and unable to say what they mean, Martin attempts to teach Esperanto. At the heart of each drama is a desire to be better, more principled and worthy of the community's respect. With his trademark compassion and sharp-eyed wit, Amos Oz leaves us with the feeling that what matters most between friends is the invisible tie of our shared humanity.

The fourth book in the Science of Discworld series, and this time around dealing with The Really Big Questions, Terry Pratchett's brilliant new Discworld story Judgement Day is annotated with very big footnotes (the interleaving chapters) by mathematician Ian Stewart and biologist Jack Cohen, to bring you a mind-mangling combination of fiction, cutting-edge science and philosophy. Marjorie Daw is a librarian, and takes her job — and indeed the truth of words — very seriously. She doesn't know it, but her world and ours — Roundworld — is in big trouble. On Discworld, a colossal row is brewing. The Wizards of Unseen University feel responsible for Roundworld (as one would for a pet gerbil). After all, they brought it into existence by bungling an experiment in Quantum ThaumoDynamics. But legal action is being brought against them by Omnians, who say that the Wizards' god-like actions make a mockery of their noble religion. As the finest legal brains in Discworld (a zombie and a priest) gird their loins to do battle — and when the Great Big Thing in the High Energy Magic Laboratory is switched on — Marjorie Daw finds herself thrown across the multiverse and right in the middle of the whole explosive affair. As God, the Universe and, frankly, Everything Else is investigated by the trio, you can expect world-bearing elephants, quantum gravity in the Escher-verse, evolutionary design, eternal inflation, dark matter, disbelief systems — and an in-depth study of how to invent a better mousetrap.

A sudden burst of nationalism has swept over Polly Perks causing her to cut off her hair, don her brother's clothes and join the local regiment so she can fight for her country. But there's only one problem — she has no idea who she'll be fighting or what she is really fighting for. And why do they want her to have a rolled-up pair of socks anyway? War teaches you a lot, she finds, when it turns out that you joined — the Monstrous Regiment.

A generation after the events of The Long Earth, mankind has spread across the new worlds opened up by Stepping. Where Joshua and Lobsang once pioneered, now fleets of airships link the stepwise Americas with trade and culture. Mankind is shaping the Long Earth — but in turn the Long Earth is shaping mankind... A new 'America', called Valhalla, is emerging more than a million steps from Datum Earth, with core American values restated in the plentiful environment of the Long Earth — and Valhalla is growing restless under the control of the Datum government... Meanwhile the Long Earth is suffused by the song of the trolls, graceful hive-mind humanoids. But the trolls are beginning to react to humanity's thoughtless exploitation... Joshua, now a married man, is summoned by Lobsang to deal with a gathering multiple crisis that threatens to plunge the Long Earth into a war unlike any mankind has waged before.

One by one the boys begin to fall... In 1914 a room full of German schoolboys, fresh-faced and idealistic, are goaded by their schoolmaster to troop off to the 'glorious war'. With the fire and patriotism of youth they sign up. What follows is the moving story of a young 'unknown soldier' experiencing the horror and disillusionment of life in the trenches.

Ten years ago, Jacques Gaillard disappeared from Paris. No investigation has yet led to any clue as to whether he is missing — or murdered. Challenged to decipher the mystery once and for all, Enzo Macleod must use new science to crack a cold case. Once a forensics expert in his native Scotland, he's taken on a bet to solve seven murders listed in a cult book by an embittered Parisian journalist. Deep in the catacombs below Paris, a skull is discovered that could be Gaillard's. But it is the peculiar items embedded within the bone that give him the most intriguing clues — and send him on a trail after the rest of the missing man. Unaware that he's also following in the footsteps of their murderer...

P.I. Craig Gisto, head of the latest branch of Private, is enjoying the glamorous launch party with his new team when their celebrations are interrupted by the bloodied arrival of a boy with his eyes gouged out. The boy is the kidnapped son of one of Australia's richest men — but investigating his death isn't their only pressing case. The rock star Micky Stevens is convinced someone's trying to kill him, and believes Private are the only ones who can help. As if that wasn't enough, someone is murdering the wealthy wives of the Eastern Suburbs, in the most brutal way imaginable. And if they don't catch the killer soon, the next victim could be someone close to Private...

Castle Extremis — whoever holds it can control the provinces either side that have been at war for centuries. Now the castle is about to play host to the signing of a peace treaty. But as the Doctor and Martha find out, not everyone wants the war to end. Who is the strange little girl who haunts the castle? What is the secret of the book the Doctor finds, its pages made from thin, brittle glass? Who is the hooded figure that watches from the shadows? And what is the secret of the legendary Mortal Mirror? The Doctor and Martha don't have long to find the answers — an army is on the march, and the castle will soon be under siege once more...Featuring the Tenth Doctor and Martha as played by David Tennant and Freema Agyeman in the hit sci-fi series from BBC Television.

How well can you ever really know someone? As Ben Casper watches his best friend plummet from her sixth-floor apartment balcony, he realises his life is about to change. Diana had no reason to kill herself, she had to have been pushed. Diana worked for the CIA, so the investigation into her death is kept tightly under wraps. But Ben is a political journalist, and can feel that something isn't right. Ben starts investigating for himself and soon discovers Diana was leading a double life he knew nothing about. But when more people involved die in questionable circumstances, it's clear that someone doesn't want the truth to be uncovered. And unless Ben drops his investigation, he could be next.

Lottie is tired of long-term boyfriends who don't want to commit to marriage. When her old boyfriend Ben reappears and reminds her of their pact to get married if they were both still single at thirty, she jumps at the chance. There will be no dates and no engagement — just a straight wedding march to the altar! Next comes the honeymoon on the Greek island where they first met. But not everyone is thrilled with Lottie and Ben's rushed marriage, and family and friends are determined to intervene. Will Lottie and Ben have a wedding night to remember... or one to forget?

'Seek and ye shall find.' With these words echoing in his head, eminent Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon awakes in a hospital bed with no recollection of where he is or how he got there. Nor can he explain the origin of the macabre object that is found hidden in his belongings. A threat to his life will propel him and a young doctor, Sienna Brooks, into a breakneck chase across the city of Florence. Only Langdon's knowledge of hidden passageways and ancient secrets that lie behind its historic facade can save them from the clutches of their unknown pursuers. With only a few lines from Dante's dark and epic masterpiece, The Inferno, to guide them, they must decipher a sequence of codes buried deep within some of the most celebrated artefacts of the Renaissance — sculptures, paintings, buildings — to find the answers to a puzzle which may, or may not, help them save the world from a terrifying threat... Set against an extraordinary landscape inspired by one of history's most ominous literary classics, Inferno is Dan Brown's most compelling and thought-provoking novel yet, a breathless race-against-time thriller that will grab you from page one and not let you go until you close the book.

After crossing oceans, a man and a boy arrive in a new land. Here they are each assigned a name and an age, and held in a camp in the desert while they learn Spanish, the language of their new country. As Simon and David they make their way to the relocation centre in the city of Novilla, where officialdom treats them politely but not necessarily helpfully. Simon finds a job in a grain wharf. The work is unfamiliar and backbreaking, but he soon warms to his stevedore comrades, who during breaks conduct philosophical dialogues on the dignity of labour, and generally take him to their hearts. Now he must set about his task of locating the boy's mother. Though like everyone else who arrives in this new country he seems to be washed clean of all traces of memory, he is convinced he will know her when he sees her. And indeed, while walking with the boy in the countryside Simon catches sight of a woman he is certain is the mother, and persuades her to assume the role. David's new mother comes to realise that he is an exceptional child, a bright, dreamy boy with highly unusual ideas about the world. But the school authorities detect a rebellious streak in him and insist he be sent to a special school far away. His mother refuses to yield him up, and it is Simon who must drive the car as the trio flees across the mountains. The Childhood of Jesus is a profound, beautiful and continually surprising novel from a very great writer.

1969. A veteran secret agent. A single mission. A licence to kill. James Bond returns.

A thrilling collection of twenty-one original stories by an all-star list of contributors — including a new A Game of Thrones story by George R. R. Martin! The latest story collection from #1 New York Times bestselling author George R. R. Martin and award-winning editor Gardner Dozois is filled with subtle shades of gray. Twenty-one all-original stories, by an all-star list of contributors, will delight and astonish you in equal measure with their cunning twists and dazzling reversals. And George R. R. Martin himself offers a brand-new A Game of Thrones tale chronicling one of the biggest rogues in the entire Ice and Fire saga. Follow along with the likes of Gillian Flynn, Joe Abercrombie, Neil Gaiman, Patrick Rothfuss, Scott Lynch, Cherie Priest, Garth Nix, and Connie Willis as well as other masters of literary sleight-of-hand in this rogues' gallery of stories that will plunder your heart — and yet leave you all the richer for it. Featuring all-new stories by Joe Abercrombie — Daniel Abraham — David W. Ball — Paul Cornell — Bradley Denton — Phyllis Eisenstein — Gillian Flynn — Neil Gaiman — Matthew Hughes — Joe R. Lansdale — Scott Lynch — Garth Nix — Cherie Priest — Patrick Rothfuss — Steven Saylor — Michael Swanwick — Lisa Tuttle — Carrie Vaughn — Walter Jon Williams — Connie Willis And an Introduction by George R. R. Martin!

National Book Award Finalist Shortlisted for the 2013 Man Booker Prize From the Pulitzer Prize-winning, best-selling author of The Namesake comes an extraordinary new novel, set in both India and America, that expands the scope and range of one of our most dazzling storytellers: a tale of two brothers bound by tragedy, a fiercely brilliant woman haunted by her past, a country torn by revolution, and a love that lasts long past death. Born just fifteen months apart, Subhash and Udayan Mitra are inseparable brothers, one often mistaken for the other in the Calcutta neighborhood where they grow up. But they are also opposites, with gravely different futures ahead. It is the 1960s, and Udayan-charismatic and impulsive — finds himself drawn to the Naxalite movement, a rebellion waged to eradicate inequity and poverty; he will give everything, risk all, for what he believes. Subhash, the dutiful son, does not share his brother’s political passion; he leaves home to pursue a life of scientific research in a quiet, coastal corner of America. But when Subhash learns what happened to his brother in the lowland outside their family’s home, he goes back to India, hoping to pick up the pieces of a shattered family, and to heal the wounds Udayan left behind including those seared in the heart of his brother’s wife. Masterly suspenseful, sweeping, piercingly intimate, The Lowland is a work of great beauty and complex emotion; an engrossing family saga and a story steeped in history that spans generations and geographies with seamless authenticity. It is Jhumpa Lahiri at the height of her considerable powers.

Belize might just have the greatest variety of flora and fauna of any country of its size in the world. Offshore the Belize Barrier Reef, a great wall of coral, stretches the entire 200-mile-length of the coast. And archaeologists have identified more than 600 significant Mayan sites in Belize. Fodor's guide gives you all the information you need to plan the perfect trip, whether you want a scuba adventure, a getaway to a secluded jungle lodge, or barefoot luxury in a peaceful beach town. Expanded Coverage: We cover the new hotel and restaurants in Belize City, as well as exciting developments in remote jungle areas such as the Cayo and up-and-coming beach communites such as Placencia Peninsula. Plus an entire chapter is devoted to Tikal, one of the world's greatest Mayan ruins, just over the border in Guatemala. Gorgeous color-photo insert: The beauty of Belize is highlighted in an 8-page color feature on Top Experiences. Indispensable Trip Planning Tools: Chapters begin with a Top Reasons to Go feature that quickly identifies the highlights of each region. Find complete coverage of snorkeling and dive sites with maps and recommended outfitters. Choose an adventure, from bird watching to cave tubing to ecotours, from our special Adventure Vacations chapter. And learn about the Mayas with our brief history of the people, tips on visiting the ruins, and a special Maya-ruins itinerary. Discerning Recommendations: Belize 6th Edition offers savvy advice and recommendations from local writers to help travelers make the most of their time. Fodor's Choice designates our best picks, from hotels to nightlife. Word of Mouth quotes from fellow travelers provide valuable insights.

The day the First World War broke out, Alfie Summerfield's father promised he wouldn't go away to fight — but he broke that promise the following day. Four years later, Alfie doesn't know where his father might be, other than that he's away on a special, secret mission. Then, while shining shoes at King's Cross Station, Alfie unexpectedly sees his father's name — on a sheaf of papers belonging to a military doctor. Bewildered and confused, Alfie realises his father is in a hospital close by — a hospital treating soldiers with an unusual condition. Alfie is determined to rescue his father from this strange, unnerving place...

«This is an illustrated children's picture book prequel to the worldwide bestseller A Street Cat Named Bob and The World According to Bob — perfect for very young fans. It is a moving and uplifting tale about one cat in search of a friend that will melt your heart. «[Bob] has entranced London like no feline since the days of Dick Whittington».»

Diamond wasn't always a star. Born to penniless parents who longed for a strong, healthy son, she was a dainty, delicate daughter — and a bitter disappointment. Discovering an extraordinary gift for acrobatics, Diamond uses her talent to earn a few pennies, but brings shame on her family. When a mysterious, cruel-eyed stranger spots her performing, Diamond is sold — and is taken to become an acrobat at Tanglefield's Travelling Circus. The crowds adore Diamond, but life behind the velvet curtains is far from glamorous. Her wicked master forces Diamond to attempt ever more daring tricks, until she is terrified to step into the ring. But there are true friends to be found, too: the gentle Mister Marvel; the kindly Madame Adeline; and the glorious Emerald Star, Tanglefield's brand-new ringmaster, and Diamond's heroine. When life at the circus becomes too dangerous to bear any longer, what will the future hold for Diamond? And will her beloved Emerald be a part of it?