2013

Arthur Aldridge was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for his bravery in taking out German cargo ship SS Madrid in December 1941, during which he lost a wing tip. He was lucky enough to survive his squadron’s attack on the Axis’s maritime fleet during the notorious Channel Dash, which saw 40 RAF planes shot down. ‘Arty’ was awarded a Bar to his DFC for sinking two enemy ships off Malta and rescuing a fellow pilot while wounded, as his own Beaufort took four shells. Arthur Aldridge and his loyal gunner, Bill Carroll, who also contributes his memories, are two of the last torpedo airmen left alive.

27-year-old Surjit Athwal was lured by her husband to a wedding in India, where she was murdered and her body thrown into a river. Surjit’s sister-in-law, Sarbjit Athwal, had been present at the family meeting in London, at which her mother-in-law pronounced a death sentence on the absent Surjit, for bringing dishonour to them. Risking the same fate, Sarbjit covertly sought justice for nine years, finally securing long custodial sentences for Surjit’s mother-in-law and her husband. Speaking publicly for the first time, this brave woman exposes the full extent and extreme injustices of forced marriages and honour killings in Britain today.

Written by the author of the stylebook for BBC Radio News, this former BBC producer brings his prodigious wit and learning to the way we use the English language. Should we worry about apostrophes? What are the 100 most used words? Which words are most commonly misspelt; or derived from French, German and Spanish; or are banned at the Daily Telegraph? What are the secrets of becoming a cryptic crossword genius or a master Scrabble player? Richard Baker presents these and many other weighty linguistic matters with the lightness of a fine soufflé.

The Happy Valley set’s notoriety was sealed in 1941 with the still unsolved murder of the Earl of Errol. Juliet Barnes explores Happy Valley in a remarkable archaeological quest to find the homes and haunts of the extraordinary and vanished characters. With the help of African guides, and the memories of elderly expats, she brings new insights to their gilded but frantic lives, and updates the area’s traumatic history from the Mau Mau atrocities in the 50s to the forest and animal devastations of today.

Can you really get the benefits of exercise in just a few minutes a day? Michael Mosley and Peta Bee investigate the science behind a radically different approach to exercise – one that is incredibly time efficient.

Research has shown the extraordinary impact that ultra-short bursts of HIT (high intensity training) can have, whatever your age or level of fitness.

They offer practical advice and a range of workouts that take just a few minutes a day and can be done at any time, anywhere.

In this comprehensive account of the Whitechapel murders, leading crime historian, Paul Begg, establishes all the essential and verifiable information available on the case, and explores the myth of Jack the Ripper in literature, theatre, film and in our culture. His meticulous research illuminates the desperate physical and social conditions in the East End during the 1880s, ideal for the killer’s purposes. He details the real lives of the murdered women, and why they were selected to be victims; examines the evidence against the known suspects; and assesses the opinions of senior policemen at the time on the killer’s identity.

The health and fitness columnist of The Times, has written an easy-to-use and permanently effective guide to achieving optimum weight, not by following the latest diet trend, but by making wise food choices every day.  Simply by swapping some of the foods you eat regularly for healthier options, you can shave hundreds of calories every day, along with unnecessary sugar and fat, from your diet without ‘going on a diet’.  You choose which foods you want to swap, so there are no banned foods, no skipping meals and definitely no going hungry!

It is a crime, no less disturbing today than it was in 1993, when Ralph Bulger’s two- year-old son, James, was abducted and brutally murdered by two ten-year-old boys, Jon Venables and Robert Thompson. Ralph talks with searing honesty about the murder, the nightmares that haunted him and the grief that ripped his marriage apart. He describes his outrage at his son’s killers being sentenced to only eight years’ detention in a secure unit and how he has found the strength to sustain a twenty-year battle to achieve justice for his son. My James is a father’s loving tribute to his adorable young boy, whose bright smile brought joy to all who knew him. Deservedly No. 1 in the Sunday Times bestseller chart.

Working during the late 1940s and 1950s, Staff Nurse Georgie Edwards realised that, if she was to restore the health of her patients more effectively, she needed to diagnose and treat as well as to nurse them. She was offered a place to study medicine at the prestigious Barts Hospital in London, and in her own distinctive manner, set about becoming a doctor, who listened and cared, a far cry from the consultants ‘who sweep by’. But Georgie also fell in love and wanted a family as well as a career. Warmly evoking both the joys and the sadnesses of her work, The Best Medicine is Georgie’s engaging and often humorous memoir of her early years in the Health Service, first as a nurse, then as a doctor.

This is the story of Prince Harry, the popular third in line to the British throne – impulsive, deeply caring, and able to engage spontaneously with ordinary people and children. Chris Hutchins’s insightful and superbly sourced text tracks the roller-coaster trajectory of the Prince’s life, from a childhood scarred by his parents’ troubled marriage and his mother’s tragic death, to his brilliant public performances at the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee, the 2012 London Olympics and his brother’s wedding to Kate Middleton. It sets out the remarkable journey of a young man with an extraordinary destiny, with many revelations along the way. Hutchins draws his sources from a wide range of those who know the real Harry: from the girls he has loved and lost, to the soldiers who have fought alongside him in Afghanistan.

Ava Gold’s employment options are rapidly shrinking and, not wanting to go back to driving minicabs, she lands herself a trial run as nightclub owner Chris Street’s personal driver.  Chris is one of the men about town in Kellston, east London, and has his doubts about employing a female driver, but Ava soon proves her worth and beyond.  Still, working for one of the notorious Streets, who have a past history of violence reaching back to the sixties, was never going to be easy.  Chris’s ex-wife is newly involved with his worst enemy, and his younger brother Danny is up to something that will pull Ava into a world of blackmail, murder, sex and greed…

The Quinns are one of the most feared criminal gangs in London’s East End. So the reaction of Joe Quinn to the news that his daughter, Lynsey, is involved with a policeman is predictable and swift, and a pregnant Lynsey finds herself out on the street, bruised and alone. At the age of eleven, Lynsey’s daughter Helen is returned to the clan. Hated by her grandfather, loved only by her uncle, she struggles to fit into a world she doesn’t understand. As warring factions battle for control of the East End, tragedy is about to strike again. How can Helen survive? And who can she trust when the Quinn family’s criminal past comes back to haunt her?

The first biography of Unity Valkyrie Mitford to show the real nature of her extraordinarily close relationship with Adolf Hitler conducted mostly in his beloved Munich throughout the 1930s. As with Hitler’s other women, Unity was expected to end her own life, and, like Wagner’s Valkyrie, wait for him in the afterlife of Valhalla, which she duly tried to do with a bullet in Munich upon Britain’s declaration of war. The intertwining lives of Hitler and this clever, attractive and promiscuous young woman, supported by the frequent visits to Germany of her sister, Diana, whose marriage to Oswald Mosley in Berlin was attended by Hitler, and the Nazi sympathies of other members of her family, make for spellbinding reading.

James Moore and Paul Nero reveal the dramatic attempts to kill Winston Churchill as well as 49 other narrow escapes in history covering everything from wars that were averted to invasions, revolutions and apocalyptic scenarios, that we escaped by the skin of our teeth. Included are the stories of how Prince Albert from his deathbed stopped war between Britain and the US in the 1860s; how Nelson’s heroics at the Battle of Trafalgar might never have happened, if it hadn’t been for the quick thinking of his son-in-law eight years before; and how the actions of a single Soviet Army colonel avoided World War Three in 1983. History’s Narrowest Escapes reveals how our history could have been very different…and possibly much worse!

Packed with the finest hostelries to grace the 16th century and written with all the flavour of the language of the day, this witty and meticulously researched tome covers every county in the land and directs you to all its celebrated and charming pubs, many of which still exist today.  Ye Olde Good Inn Guide is an essential aid to both the pub historian and the drinker, who yearns for the lost age of the trusty tavern.

Michelle Morgan tells the stories of Hollywood’s secrets, lies, murders, suicides and mysteries. 60 famous as well as near-forgotten scandals across almost 100 years of Hollywood’s history include the tragic account of Roscoe ‘Fatty’ Arbuckle’s murder trial that ruined his life, the death of Lana Turner’s boyfriend, and on through to the present day, with the divorce of Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes, the death of Whitney Houston and the love-triangle between Brad Pitt, Jennifer Aniston and Angelina Jolie.

Commissioned for the Shire Library series, The Victorian Detective follows the trail of crime investigation from the earliest days before detectives were employed by police forces to the advent of fingerprint science at the very end of Victoria’s reign, and includes profiles on the important detectives of the era like Jonathan Whicher and Frederick Abberline.

Within weeks of reserved 61 year-old American journalist, Mildred Aldrich, retiring in 1914 to live quietly in a small hill-top house near Paris, she was to have a grandstand view of the first bloody battles of World War I in the Marne Valley. The author skilfully weaves Mildred’s own published and unpublished words into his detailed and moving account of her war, especially of the British and French soldiers, whom she befriended, fed and cared for as best she could, without thought of the danger she was in.