Catalog Search Results
Author
Formats
Summary
In G. K. Chesterton's audacious first novel, The Napoleon of Notting Hill, the familiar streets of London are transformed into a stage for satire, romance, and rebellion. Set in a whimsically unchanged 1984, Chesterton imagines a future where democracy has faded and the city's boroughs are ruled by randomly selected, ceremonial kings. When the irreverent Auberon Quin is crowned, he amuses himself by decreeing elaborate medieval pageantry for the city's...
Author
Formats
Summary
Augustus Melmotte is a fraudulent foreign financier who preys on dissolute nobility - using charm to tempt the weak into making foolish investments in his dubious schemes. Persuaded to put money into a notional plot to run a railroad from San Francisco to Santa Cruz, the capricious gambler Felix Carbury soon becomes one of his victims. But as Melmotte climbs higher in society, his web of deceit - which also draws in characters as diverse as his own...
Author
Formats
Summary
"Two people. One house. A year that changes everything. Twenty-nine-year-old Jess is following her dream and moving to London. It's December, and she's taking a room in a crumbling, but grand, Notting Hill house-share with four virtual strangers. On her first night, Jess meets Alex, the guy sharing her floor, at a Christmas dinner hosted by her landlord. They don't kiss, but as far as Jess is concerned the connection is clear. She starts planning...
Author
Summary
"Love blooms in the darkest days . . . It's 1942, and London remains under constant threat of enemy attack as the second world war rages on. In the Bethnal Green neighborhood, Nellie Morris counts every day lucky that she emerges from the underground shelters unharmed, her loving family still surrounding her. Three years into the war, she's grateful to hold onto remnants of normalcy - her job assisting the mayor and nights spent at the local pub with...
7) Funny girl
Author
Summary
In swinging 60s England, the nation is mesmerized by unlikely comedy star Sophie Straw, the former Blackpool beauty queen who just wants to make people laugh, like her heroine Lucille Ball. Behind the scenes, the cast and crew are having the time of their lives. But when the script begins to get a bit too close to home, and life starts imitating art, they all face a choice. The show's writers, Tony and Bill, comedy obsessives, each harbour a secret....
8) The keeper
Author
Formats
Summary
DI Sean Corrigan is different to most cops. He is no psychic, but his own dark past has given him the ability to step into a crime scene and see it through the eyes of the offender. He understands what drives a person to commit murder, rape, arson - but sometimes his gift seems more like a burden. When the brutally murdered body of a young woman is found in the woods, Corrigan and his team are on the case. But this is not the act of a one-time offender....
Author
Formats
Summary
This revealing romp through proper society follows three different women who dare to defy Victorian standards. Can You Forgive Her? comically intertwines the stories of three very independent-minded women who each desires to decide her own fate in a world where love comes second to obedience and familial expectations set them apart from their peers. First and foremost is the spirited Alice Vavasor, whose indecision and repeated rejections of two...
Author
Formats
Summary
Ever since its publication in 1948, George Orwell's terrifying vision of a totalitarian regime where Big Brother controls its citizens like 'a boot stamping on a human face' has become a touchstone for human freedom, and one of the most widely-read books in the world. In this new annotated edition Orwell's biographer D. J. Taylor elucidates the full meaning of this timeless satire, explaining contemporary references in the novel, placing it in the...
11) Lethal white
Author
Series
Summary
"When Billy, a troubled young man, comes to private eye Cormoran Strike's office to ask for his help investigating a crime he thinks he witnessed as a child, Strike is left deeply unsettled. While Billy is obviously mentally distressed, and cannot remember many concrete details, there is something sincere about him and his story. But before Strike can question him further, Billy bolts from his office in a panic. Trying to get to the bottom of Billy's...
Author
Appears on these lists
Summary
Rachel takes the same commuter train every morning, flashing past a stretch of cozy suburban homes, and stopping at the signal that allows her to daily watch the same couple breakfasting on their deck. Their life, as she sees it, is perfect ... until she sees something shocking. It's only a minute until the train moves on, but now everything is changed. Rachel goes to the police, and becomes inextricably entwined in the lives of everyone involved....
14) Maisie Dobbs
Author
Series
Summary
Maisie Dobbs entered domestic service in 1910 at thirteen, working for Lady Rowan Compton. When her remarkable intelligence is discovered by her employer, Maisie becomes the pupil of Maurice Blanche, a learned friend of the Comptons. In 1929, following an apprenticeship with Blanche, Maisie hangs out her shingle: "M. Dobbs, trade and personal investigations." She soon becomes enmeshed in a mystery surrounding The Retreat, a reclusive community of...
15) The party
Author
Formats
Summary
A taut psychological tale of obsession and betrayal set over the course of a dinner party, THE PARTY tells the story of two married couples who, in a single evening, will come to question everything they thought they knew about each other, as the long-buried secret at the heart of their friendship comes to the surface, culminating in an explosive act of violence. -- amazon.com
Author
Series
Formats
Summary
Counted among the four "Queens of Crime", Dorothy L. Sayers was an English writer best known for her upper-class amateur sleuth Peter Wimsey, who first appeared in "Whose Body?", Sayers' 1923 debut novel. Sayers is noted for having advanced the genre of detective fiction past the simple solving of puzzles to stories rich with characterization. This can be seen in this classic collection of short stories featuring Lord Peter Wimsey. First collected...
17) The bone season
Author
Series
Formats
Summary
It is the year 2059. Several major world cities are under the control of a security force called Scion. Paige Mahoney works in the criminal underworld of Scion London, part of a secret cell known as the Seven Seals. Paige is a dreamwalker, a rare kind of clairvoyant. She scouts for information by breaking into others' minds. And in this world, the voyants commit treason simply by breathing. (Bestseller)
Author
Series
Summary
An old-fashioned London Hotel is not quite as reputable as it makes out! When Miss Marple comes up from the country for a holiday in London, she finds what she's looking for at Bertram's Hotel: traditional decor, impeccable service and an unmistakable atmosphere of danger behind the highly polished veneer. Yet, not even Miss Marple can foresee the violent chain of events set in motion when an eccentric guest makes his way to the airport on the wrong...
Author
Formats
Summary
Twenty-six-year-old Maggie Barnes is someone you would never look at twice. Living alone in a month-to-month sublet in the huge city of London, with no family but an estranged sister, no boyfriend or partner, and not much in the way of friends, Maggie is just the kind of person who could vanish from the face of the earth without anyone taking notice. Or just the kind of person MI5 needs to infiltrate the establishment and thwart an international plot...
20) Private London
Author
Series
Summary
For Hannah Shapiro, a beautiful young American student, this particular nightmare began eight years ago in Los Angeles, when Jack Morgan, owner of Private--the world's most exclusive detective agency--saved her from a horrific death. She has fled her country, but can't flee her past. The terror has followed her to London, and now it is down to former Royal Military Police Sergeant Dan Carter, head of Private London, to save her all over again.In central...