The Quiet Woman begins when two people conspire to steal a fortune in cash. It ends in double murder. The payroll of the Jauncey Engineering plant is missing. According to the guard, found bound and gagged at the scene, two trusted employees, Harold Graham and Yvonne Marshall, are responsible for the crime, and the police proceed as if this were just another payroll theft. To crime reporter Quinn it sounds like the usual story of a married man and a younger woman who plot to steal the money in order to finance a new life together. He and his friend, insurance assessor Piper, question the missing woman's husband and the missing man's wife and her sister. Soon they are patching scattered clues together, and Quinn sets out to investigate the possibility that Yvonne may have already double-crossed Harold. Then the first corpse is discovered. All clues point in the same direction, but when the second body is found in a watery ditch, that theory must also be discarded. Another hypothesis is then proposed and painstakingly investigated. It, too, turns into a blind alley. A third cul-de-sac, equally convincing and just as false, makes the action by turns frustrating or suspenseful, but always gripping. And Quinn, who wanted only a human-interest angle for his column, becomes more and more intimately involved in the case. A telephone call from the police provides him with further evidence and leads Quinn reluctantly but inevitably to the conclusion of this fast-paced novel. The Quiet Woman is a story of ordinary people engulfed in frightening events. It will challenge even the most astute.

Don't laugh, it's Berl...Berl's wife ran away with the gardener. Could you blame her? Berl is a little Jewish odd-job man who wanders around in a black serge suit, striped trousers, sandals and a black homburg hat with fungus growing on it. Berl's a born victim. Always trouble. Crisis after crisis. As for now, the only thing that's worrying Berl is maybe his wife will come back. "Hapless, Luckless, Feckless, Lovable, Indestructible and Stupendously Funny" -Daily Telegraph

The three men have been closely bonded ever since they made a remarkable escape from Occupied France in 1941. Now, in leafy Surrey, the Festival of Britain is being celebrated, but the atmosphere in the village where they all live is tense. A young gardener has been found with his throat cut. Martin Latimer and Peter Davis seem completely recovered from their traumatic wartime experiences and have settled comfortably into a life of cricket matches and church teas. Since his return from France, however, Tim Groves has changed completely. Gone is the brave and charismatic man Lucy married, replaced by a shadowy, nervous figure. Lucy is certain that Tim's decline is due to the men's experiences in France, but all three resolutely refuse to talk about what happened there, blaming the Official Secrets Act. Finally, driven to desperation by Tim's anxious and withdrawn state, Lucy persuades him to return to France with her in order to retrace the dark events that broke him. At first, her plan appears to be working. Tim goes for a walk alone, something he hasn't done for years. But when he doesn't return that night, Lucy begins to fear the worst. Gradually the calamities of the war begin to emerge, and the comfortable Surrey lives of the men and their wives will never be the same again...

In this latest volume in Mr. Croft-Cooke's autobiographical series, he writes about the uneasy world of the 1930 and of Spain before the Civil War. On a personal level, he tells about his new venture into the second-hand book trade, when through patience and determination he managed to survive brilliantly where it would have been so easy to have failed. As a creative writer he battled through more ups and downs than would seem possible, yet always emerged triumphant, if scarred, determined to live by the profession he had chosen, no matter what the difficulties. Remembering, he writes now with charm and humour of the period and the people he knew, and he has recaptured vividly the world that surrounded a young professional writer struggling to keep his head above water.

For Imogen Redcliffe leaving a man with an incurable disease was unthinkable. But it didn't stop her longing for her freedom. Perhaps therefore it was dangerous to embark on a holiday with a group of strangers? Two weeks in Seychelles may have seemed like paradise on paper but the reality would prove rather different.In the company of, among others, a sex-starved doctor, a shrewd psychotherapist and a frightened vegetarian, Imogen is forced to face up to her own shortcomings and to take action. It's a liberating experience, but not quite in the way she intended!

A hitherto unknown pornographic manuscript of Robert Burns is found in the effects of a dead schoolmaster of impeccable reputation.Max Arbuthnot, an Edinburgh lawyer and a rich man, who at the age of sixty has a rampant appetite for the pleasures of the flesh, takes charge of it. As the manuscript is lost, found again, stolen, and variously shuttles back and forth, the infection of its bawdiness creates havoc in Edinburgh.It's ultimate fate is only decided after a series of bizarre adventures. Part farce, part satire on manners and social attitudes, The Merry Muse sparkles from beginning to end.It is the work of a master, written at the height of his powers.

Could people change in only 28 days? Ruby M Ayres can always find something to bring out of her treasure house. The Tree Drops a Leaf is a charming romantic tale dealing with charming romantic people.

Volume Six of the dramatic saga of The Lorimer Family Unknown to each other, the Lorimer cousins share a history...Paula Mattison, unaware of her Lorimer connections, arrives from Jamaica, determined to make her mark in a country where she is now a foreigner. Meanwhile John Lorimer, deceived by his mother as a child, refuses to recognise his Lorimer relations and basks in spectacular business success. Only Sir Bernard Lorimer is secure and established in his inherited fortune and baronetcy. He devotes his time to scientific research and to the domestic pleasures of a happy marriage. But three women, Angela, Gitta and Isabel, will utterly transform the fortunes of the remaining Lorimers. And by the intervention of strangers the scattered cousins will come to recognise their common bond. Lorimer Loyalties is the sixth and concluding novel in the engrossing series which chronicles the lives and fortunes of the Lorimer family from the 1870s to the 1940s.

A collection of poetry from Cecil Day Lewis, Poet Laureate from 1968 until his death in 1972. Originally published in 1957, this collection shows how much his style had changed after having distanced himself from Auden. In 1951, he became only the second living writer (after TS Eliot) to be featured in the popular series of 'Penguin Poets' paperbacks. In his introduction, he wrote: 'Looking back over my verse of the last 20 years, I was struck by its lack of development - in the sense of one poetic phase emerging recognizably from the previous one and leading inevitably to the next: it would all be much tidier and more in accordance with critical specifications, were this not so. But my verse seems to me a series of fresh beginnings rather than a continuous line.'

Readers of "The Emerald of Catherine the Great" will not have to be told that Mr. Belloc's mystery stories are written with suavity and originality and an eye for piquant situations. This new mystery tale is the story of "Rackham Catchings," a manor house in Sussex belonging to an amiable but improvident squire, which in payment of a debt has come into the possession of his brother. How the squire's son, John, is forced to earn his living as a ventriloquist in the music halls, how ventriloquism plus a headless ghost sends the household into a frenzy of excitement and fear, and how John succeeds in recovering his home and winning the girl he loves make a constantly unexpected and unusual story.

A note from the author: 'All the characters in this novel are real people, revived from the pages of Yorkshire history to enact again their significant drama of love and strife, human strength and human weakness. If I have sometimes deepened the lines, and supplied the gaps, of this story of England's Civil War, from my own invention, that is the novelist's privilege: to create a symbolic unity from scattered hints and dispersed incidents.' In this novel of the English Civil War, Phyllis Bentley brings her lightness of touch, and real human compassion, to one of the darkest periods of English History.

Eden River tells the story of the first man and woman, Adam and Eve, as they make their way in Paradise, living by the river of Eden.Here, Gerald Bullett brings his characteristic style and grace to one of the oldest stories known to man.

James Graham, Marquis of Montrose, the soldier-poet who fought so magnificently and so fruitlessly for his King, Charles I.A tale of seduction and witchcraft and a promise made to Charles 1 to "raise Scotland for the King" Margaret Irwin's novels of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries have been popular for over five decades. The author's particular hall-mark is the way she blends exciting adventure, romance and penetrating character-study with scrupulous historical accuracy.

Professor Charles Lexington led a placid and uneventful life until he made the mistake of discovering a way by which lead could be turned into gold. A Mr. Bowry volunteered to help the Professor capitalize the discovery, and from then on things began to happen. Before Professor Lexington got back to earth he had been a match seller on the streets of London, an end man in a minstrel show, an inmate of a charitable institution, and a plumber. Here is just such a combination of insoluble mystery and waggish humor as brought unending delight to readers of Shadowed and the other "Chesterbelloc" tales in which laughter was crossed with diabolic plot. This tongue-in-cheek puzzler will tickle your funnybone and tax your ingenuity.

This novel tells of that simple person Wilfrid Halterton, Postmaster-General in Mrs. Boulanger's second administration, that of 1960.The placing of the big Television Contract comes within the domain of the Post Office, and Halterton is soon deeply involved in a tangle of intrigue where his simplicity makes him an easy victim to clever financiers and politicians.Belloc enthusiasts and others alike will welcome such characters as Honest Jack Williams, the Home Secretary - Lord Papworthy, Permanent Minister for Fine Arts - James Haggismuir McAuley, financier, and many others.Arthur Lawson and his brother Jacob, and their relations with Halterton, introduce a markedly original note and give this book a distinction above its predecessors.

'I didn't realise that for want of one person the world could be meaningless.' Blissfully in love for the first time, seventeen-year-old Polly thus confides to her grandmother, Muff. And these words could equally well have been spoken by Muff, or Polly's mother, Tessie. Muff can never forget her beloved brother Con, killed in the First World War, and Tessie has never recovered from the loss of her great childhood friend, Mike. Both women have married, but their lives are unfulfilled and haunted by cherished memories - Muff looks back longingly to her youth when she was a great beauty and mourns the frailty of old age, and Tessie sadly contemplates her failures: as wife, mother and woman. This sensitive story of women and love across three generations moves in time between the early part of the century, the Second World War and the Seventies. An elegantly written novel, it is both funny and sad, remarkable for its perceptive treatment of human weakness.

'We who are members of the single classes, unmarried and unattached, are always waiting to fall in love...Every day and each encounter holds out the possibility of that momentous flash which will change everything.' Constance Liddell, in her mid-forties, answers a personal column ad - 'Polish gentleman, 50s, political refugee, seeks intellectual woman for marriage' - and arranges to meet Iwo Zaluski. For Constance, her work, children, friends and friendship with her charming, philandering ex-husband only sometimes alleviate the deeper longing for intimacy and marriage. Meeting Iwo Zaluski for the first time, on a walk on Hampstead Heath, she perceives in him the loneliness of a fellow exile. Too rapidly, she falls in love.

A collection of seven short stories, from the master of regional fiction, Phyllis Bentley. A native of Yorkshire, Bentley elegantly captures the essence of a simple rural life in her words, while expressing the lives, loves and difficulties of the people who live there with a real sensitivity of emotion. These stories range from an old feud in 1350 to the post-war coming of European refugees to the Yorkshire mills.All the tales are founded on fact, but the motivation, the cause, of these facts has remained unknown, or misunderstood, through the centuries.The awful betrayal, the highwayman's thefts, the fatal gift of a textile design, the stubborn refusal of a right of way, the religious conflict, the jealousy, the bitterness, are contained in these seven stories:Revenge upon revenge; Isabella, Isabella; A West Riding love story; No road; A case of conscience; Love and money; You see

Long light evenings, swimming and tennis, striped cotton frocks...it's summer term at Raeburn. New arrival Constance King hates her boarding school on sight, yet dreams of being accepted by the other girls. Instead, she finds a ferment of frustrated hopes mingled with excited expectations...

When Phoebe married Duncan Moon, she imagined they would get around to loving one another. But she hadn't bargained on the stifling effect on her husband of his alarming family, nor the many ways in which the family would contrive to exclude her from their affluent but hollow lives. It is only when Phoebe reads the hidden diaries of her father-in-law's ex-mistress that she learns the truth about the Moons - and discovers love where she had never thought she'd find it. In this wickedly funny first novel Maggie Makepeace paints a devastating portrait of upper middle-class family life. By turns hilarious, painful, tragic and unexpectedly poignant, this is black comedy at it startling best.

In this work, C. Day Lewis, former Professor of Poetry at Oxford, chooses a form that enables his various gifts to be displayed to advantage and to sustain rapt interest in a poem longer than convention now favours. It is a poem in seven parts: 'Dialogue at the Airport'; 'Flight to Italy'; 'A Letter from Rome'; 'Bus to Florence'; 'Florence: Works of Art'; 'Elegy Before Death: at Settignano'; 'The Homeward Prospect'. The whole resembles a suite in music; various metres are used, and each part is self-contained, though all are on the same subject - a journey to and in Italy. The poet has used his first impressions of the country to illustrate certain deeper themes indicated by the epigraph: '...an Italian visit is a voyage of discovery, not only of scenes and cities, but also of the latent faculties of the traveller's heart and mind.' If anybody has had the slightest doubt about Mr. Day Lewis's ability to practice what he professes so eloquently and vigorously in his lectures, An Italian Visit should be convincing proof that its author is a poet in the full and splendid exercise of his powers.' Eric Gillett in the National Review.

Moderne, nachhaltige und wirtschaftliche Bauwerke sind heute Ergebnis werkstoffübergreifender Entwurfsplanung. Daher werden mit neuen Büchern unter dem Titel "Werkstoffübergreifendes Entwerfen und Konstruieren" erstmals die Entwurfs-, Bemessungs- und Konstruktionsgrundlagen für die Bauarten Holz, Stahl, Stahlbeton und Mauerwerk gemeinsam behandelt. Diese Darstellung erschließt dem Leser die Prinzipien der Tragwerksplanung, die allen Bauarten zugrunde liegen, dabei erleichtert die vergleichende Darstellung das Erkennen grundlegender Zusammenhänge. Zahlreiche praxisnahe Beispiele dienen der Vertiefung und Anwendung des Wissens.Der erste Band behandelt die Grundlagen der Tragwerksplanung und -bemessung unter Berücksichtigung der Eurocodes. Eingangs werden detailliert das Sicherheitskonzept im Bauwesen, die Lastannahmen und die Baustoffeigenschaften beschrieben. Den Schwerpunkt bildet die werkstoffübergreifend aufbereitete Querschnittsbemessung. Der Band schließt mit einer Einführung in die Planung von Tragwerken des Hallen- und Geschossbaus.Der zweite Band stellt den Entwurf, die Bemessung und Konstruktion von allen wesentlichen Bauteilen im Hallen- und Geschossbau im Kontext des Tragwerksentwurfs dar. Die Betrachtung der einzelnen Bauteile geht von deren Funktion, Beanspruchung und Einordnung im Tragwerk aus. Ziel ist die Entwicklung von Ausführungslösungen, die alle Aspekte des Entwurfs wie Gebrauchstauglichkeit, Gestaltung, Dauerhaftigkeit und Wirtschaftlichkeit berücksichtigen. Für die einzelnen Bauteile werden die bei der statischen Bemessung und konstruktiven Durchbildung zu beachtenden baustoffspezifischen Besonderheiten beschrieben. Dabei wird sowohl auf die Kriterien der Tragfähigkeit (einschließlich der Bauteilstabilität) als auch der Gebrauchstauglichkeit eingegangen.Zahlreiche Beispiele dienen der Anschaulichkeit und dem Vergleich.

Die Bodendynamik hat bei einer Vielzahl von geotechnischen Aufgaben eine besondere Bedeutung. Im Erdbebeningenieurwesen betrifft dies die Stabilität von Dämmen, Böschungen, Gründungen, Stützwänden und Tunneln, während Erschütterungen infolge Verkehr und Baubetrieb einen wesentlichen Aspekt des Umweltschutzes darstellen. Maschinenfundamente und zyklisch belastete Offshore Strukturen gehören ebenfalls zum Anwendungsspektrum. Das Buch behandelt die Grundlagen der Bodendynamik und darauf aufbauend die praktische Anwendung im Erschütterungsschutz und im Erdbebeningenieurwesen."

Volume Four of the dramatic saga of the Lorimer Family From the general strike to the Second World War the Lorimer spirit struggles to survive...On the peaceful Thameside estate of Blaize, Alexa Glanville shares the long years of her widowhood with Matthew Lorimer, the man she loves but can never marry. Meanwhile Kate Lorimer loses her lover and her ideals in the turmoil of Stalin's Russia and her daughter Ilsa becomes a tragic victim of the Second World War. But a new generation of Lorimers is on the way - and all of them are drawn back to Blaize by their love for Alexa, whose indomitable spirit keeps the family alive. Lorimers in Love is the engrossing story of an English family caught up in the great events of the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s.

Norma Ackroyd is the quintessential English country rose-pretty and rather innocent. But on the day her path crosses with that of the notorious womanizer from London, George Laxton, fate itself seemed determined to shatter her previously sheltered life. For Norma fell hopelessly in love with Laxton and chose to ignore or disbelieve all the bad things she heard about him-to the intense chagrin of her family. They knew that many of the stories were true and that Norma was courting almost certain disaster. But she was determined to let heart rule head, and who knows, maybe leopards can change their spots? This delightful story, which twists and turns like the vicissitudes of love itself, will appeal strongly to all readers of romantic fiction.

Volume Three of the dramatic saga of the Lorimer Family Scattered by War, but the Lorimer saga continues...The ball which Lord and Lady Glanville give for the 21st birthday of their nephew Brinsley Lorimer is a glittering social occasion in their country house, Blaize. But the year is 1914 and the telegram which summons Brinsley from the dance floor to the Western Front heralds the scattering of the Lorimer family. While Brinsley's 23-year-old sister Kate goes to Serbia to work as a doctor, Dr Margaret Lorimer converts her sister's opera house at Blaize into a military hospital. Only after the war ends is Margaret able to look into the future with hope for those of the younger generation who have survived...Lorimers at War is the third engrossing novel in the series which chronicles the lives and fortunes of the Lorimer family from the 1870's to the 1940's.

The Next Great War begins, and soon all Europe is involved. The war lasts a year - and then the women, robbed of husbands and sweethearts and sons, grow doubtful of the benefits of military policy, and begin to think that victory will come too late to do them any good. But what can they do? A remedy was discovered by Aristophanes about 2350 years ago. It is re-discovered and re-applied. And it is again successful. This is an Aristophanic comedy, and takes some Aristophanic liberties. It is satirical when the author pleases and when he cares to be serious he is very serious indeed. There is no monotony. The story shifts from realism to wild burlesque; from earnest appeal to uproarious extravagance. The final scenes are in Edinburgh. Aristophanes made his insurgent women seize the Acropolis - here they take possession of Edinburgh Castle, as tall an eminence, and hold it against the infuriated men. The fight for the Castle is the culminating incident in a vigorous and many-sided novel.

Bullett's novel centers on the lives of three brothers growing up at the end of the 19th Century, and their adaptation to the birth of a new age following the First World War.

Rem McAllister took the job reluctantly. He was to lead an army mule-train laden with gold across the desert from Mesquite Springs - and he knew that with Clancy and the ruthless Franchon Gang on the rampage, and Gaton and his Apaches out for white scalps, there wasn't much chance of its getting through. So when the mule-train was bushwhacked, the army escort massacred, the gold stolen and he himself wounded, McAllister wasn't really surprised. Just good and mad. And out for bullet-fast revenge.