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The second book in the Tom Thorne series from bestselling author Mark Billingham, Scaredy Cat is a gripping, chilling tour-de-force; a book to keep you reading until deep into the night.'Assured and shocking' GuardianIt was a vicious, calculated murder. The killer selected his victim at Euston station, followed her home on the tube, strangled her to death in front of her child. At the same time, killed in the same way, a second body is discovered at the back of King's Cross station. And this grisly event eerily echoes the murder of two other women, stabbed to death months before on the same day.It is DI Tom Thorne who sees the link and comes to the horrifying conclusion. This is not a serial killer the police are up against.This is two of them - and two killers are way more deadly than one . . .__________Read what everyone's saying about the heart-racing Tom Thorne series:'Literary superstar' Mail on Sunday'Ingenious' Guardian'Ground-breaking' Sunday Times'Mark Billingham gets better and better' Michael Connelly'A cracking read . . . I couldn't put it down!' Shari Lapena'A damn fine storyteller' Karin Slaughter'Twisted and twisty' Linwood Barclay'One of the most consistently entertaining, insightful crime writers working today' Gillian Flynn'The next superstar detective is already with us. Don't miss him' Lee Child

The ninth book in the Kay Scarpetta series, from No. 1 bestselling author Patricia Cornwell. 'America's most chilling writer of crime fiction' The TimesA farmhouse destroyed by fire. A body amongst the ruins.Dr Kay Scarpetta, Chief Medical Examiner and consulting pathologist for the federal law enforcement agency ATF, is called out to a farmhouse in Virginia which has been destroyed by fire. In the ruins of the house she finds a body which tells a story of a violent and grisly murder. The fire has come at the same time as another, even more incendiary horror: Carrie Grethen, a killer who nearly destroyed the lives of Scarpetta and those closest to her, has escaped from a forensic psychiatric hospital. Her whereabouts is unknown, but her ultimate destination is not, for Carrie has begun to communicate with Scarpetta, conveying her deadly - if cryptic - plans for revenge. Chillingly mesmeric in tone, labyrinthine in structure, POINT OF ORIGIN is Patricia Cornwell at her most dazzling.

The fourteenth book in the Kay Scarpetta series, from No. 1 bestselling author Patricia Cornwell. 'America's most chilling writer of crime fiction' The TimesFlorida is full of human predators, and they all give Dr Kay Scarpetta the opportunity and the means to do what she does best - persuading the dead to speak to her. And in Boston, Benton Wesley is working on a secret case involving convicted killers. It is a project which gives Scarpetta deep disquiet, as does the behaviour of her niece, Lucy, who is spending too much time in cheap bars looking for casual pick-ups. The Academy is called when a woman's body is found in Boston. She has been tortured, sexually abused, her body tattooed with handprints. The same sort of handprints Lucy had seen on the flesh of her latest pick-up. Meanwhile, Scarpetta and Marino are investigating the disappearance of a family in Florida, called in by a concerned neighbour, but as they search and find the tell-tale signs of abduction rather than disappearance, they also discover that someone had assumed the identity of the caller, and she is now dead. They've been set up, and it becomes clear that someone is tracking their every move.

Winner of the Crime Novel of the Year, Lazybones is the third novel in the bestselling Tom Thorne series, a shocking, unputdownable novel from the master of psychological thrills.'Never loosens its grip on your throat' Daily MailIt's only ten days since Douglas Remfry's release from prison, having served seven years for rape, and now he's dead: naked on a bare mattress in a grubby north London hotel room, his head hooded and his hands tied with a brown leather belt.Someone knew he was coming out. Someone wanted to mete out some punishment of his own.And when a second sex offender is found dead, DI Tom Thorne knows he has a vicious, calculating vigilante on his hands...__________Read what everyone's saying about the heart-racing Tom Thorne series:'Literary superstar' Mail on Sunday'Ingenious' Guardian'Ground-breaking' Sunday Times'Mark Billingham gets better and better' Michael Connelly'A cracking read . . . I couldn't put it down!' Shari Lapena'A damn fine storyteller' Karin Slaughter'Twisted and twisty' Linwood Barclay'One of the most consistently entertaining, insightful crime writers working today' Gillian Flynn'The next superstar detective is already with us. Don't miss him' Lee Child

Hornet's Nest is the first book in the Andy Brazil series, from bestselling author Patricia Cornwell.Deputy Chief Virginia West likes and respects her boss, Hammer, but with an increasing number of visiting businessmen being murdered in her city by a maniac with a penchant for painting his victims bright orange, she finds it hard to accept Hammer's edict that a rookie reporter should ride on patrol with her to better relations with their citizens. Her worst fears are confirmed when the reporter, Brazil, presses the button to activate the boot-release rather than the siren on their first outing. He's not the only blight on her life right now: her cat's angsty, her hormones are misbehaving, her opposite number in the uniformed division is behaving like a jackass, the radio despatcher is determined to trip her up, the D.A. is in the middle of a hot battle with the trial schedule. And orange coloured corpses keep turning up on her patch.A realistic and entertaining thriller which throws an ironic light on how to police a city.

Isle of Dogs is the final book in the Andy Brazil series, following the success of Hornet's Nest and Southern Cross, from bestselling author Patricia Cornwell.Chaos breaks loose when the Governor of Virginia orders that speed traps be installed on all streets and highways, and warns that motorists will be caught by monitoring aircraft flying overhead. But the eccentric inhabitants of Tangier, fourteen miles off the coast of Virginia in the Chesapeake Bay, respond by threatening to secede and set up an independent state, claiming that their independence lies in the history of America's first settlers, those who set sail from London's Isle of Dogs in 1607. Judy Hammer, newly installed as the superintendent of Virginia State Police, and Andy Brazil, state trooper and Hammer's right hand confidant, find themselves at their wit's end as they try to protect the public from the politician's and vice versa in this pitch-perfect, darkly comic romp. With a Swiftian eye for the absurd and a deadly accurate aim on her targets, Cornwell has created another knowing story about real life policing.Visit the author's own website at patricia-cornwell.com

The sixth book in the Kay Scarpetta series, from No. 1 bestselling author Patricia Cornwell.'America's most chilling writer of crime fiction' The TimesChristmas had never been a particularly good time for Dr Kay Scarpetta. Although a holiday for most, it always seem to heighten the alienation felt by society's violent fringe; and that usually means more work for Scarpetta, Virginia's Chief Medical ExaminerI. The body was naked, female and found propped against a fountain in a bleak area of New York's Central Park. Her apparent manner of death points to a modus operandi that is chillingly familiar: the gunshot wound to the head, the sections of skin excised from the body, the displayed corpse - all suggest that Temple Brooks Gault, Scarpetta's nemesis, is back at work. Calling on all her reserves of courage and skill, and the able assistance of colleagues Marino and Wesley, Scarpetta must track this most dangerous of killers in pursuit of survival as well as justice - heading inexorably to an electrifying climax amid the dark, menacing labyrinths of the New York subway.For more about Patricia Cornwell and her books visit her website atwww.patricia-cornwell.com

THE MESSAGEDI Tom Thorne has seen plenty of dead bodies in his time. But when he starts receiving sick photos of murder victims on his mobile phone, he soon realises that the next body could be his.THE KILLERAnd even when the man who has been sending the photos is tracked down, the deadly threat remains, For some, the case is all but closed, but Thorne's nightmare is just beginning. THE TWISTBecause someone else is masterminding the death messages. The most vicious psychopath Thiorne has ever faced is able to manipulate others even behind bars, and time has only deepened the deadly grudge he has against the policeman who put him away...

St Patrick's Day, New York City. Everyone is celebrating but everyone is in for the shock of his life. Born into the heat and hatred of the Northern Ireland conflict, IRA man Brian Flynn has masterminded a brilliant terrorist act - the seizure of Saint Patrick's Cathedral. Among his hostages: the woman Brian Flynn once loved, a former terrorist turned peace activist. Among his enemies: an Irish-American police lieutenant fighting against a traitor inside his own ranks and a shadowy British intelligence officer pursuing his own cynical, bloody plan. The cops face a booby-trapped, perfectly laid out killing zone inside the church. The hostages face death. Flynn faces his own demons, in an electrifying duel of nerves, honor and betrayal...

The fourth book in the Kay Scarpetta series, from No. 1 bestselling author Patricia Cornwell.'America's most chilling writer of crime fiction' The TimesThe fingerprints say the murderer is the man who's just been executed . . .At 11.05 one December evening in Richmond, Virginia, convicted murderer Ronnie Joe Waddell is pronounced dead in the electric chair. At the morgue Dr Kay Scarpetta waits for Waddell's body. Preparing to perform a post-mortem before the subject is dead is a strange feeling, but Scarpetta has been here before. And Waddell's death is not the only newsworthy event on this freezing night: the grotesquely wounded body of a young boy is found propped against a rubbish skip. To Scarpetta the two cases seem unrelated, until she recalls that the body of Waddell's victim had been arranged in a strikingly similar position . . .

They were forced to meet by the rivers of Babylon...In Israel, two Concorde jets take off for a UN conference that will finally bring peace to the Middle East. Covered by F-14 fighters, accompanied by security men, the planes carry warriors, pacifists, lovers, enemies, dignatories - and a bomb planted by a terrorist mastermind. Suddenly they're forced to crash-land at an ancient desert site. Here, with only a handful of weapons, the men and women of the peace mission must make a desperate stand against an army of crack Palestinian commandos - while the Israeli authorities desperately attempt a rescue bid.A story of compulsive excitement, rich in personal drama and political tension that must rank as one of the greatest of our times.

A MISSING BOYTeenager Luke Mullen was last seen getting into a car with an older woman. No one can understand why he has disappeared. His father - a former police officer - knows all too well that the longer he is missing, the more likely he is to turn up dead. A TERRIFYING VIDEOThen Luke's parents receive an anonymous video. It shows their son, eyes wide with terror, as a man advances towards him holding a syringe. A RACE AGAINST TIMEDI Tom Thorne recognises a psychopath when he sees one. And the scene on the tape chills him to the bone - he knows that a child's life hangs in the balance, and that every minute counts...

The tenth book in the Kay Scarpetta series, from No. 1 bestselling author Patricia Cornwell.'America's most chilling writer of crime fiction' The TimesWhen a cargo ship pulls in to Richmond, USA, from Belgium, its soon discovered to be transporting a locked, sealed container holding the decomposed remains of a stowaway. The postmortem performed by the Chief Medical Examiner, Kay Scarpetta, initially reveals neither a cause of death nor an identification. But the victim's personal effects and an odd tattoo take Scarpetta on a hunt for information that leads to Interpol's headquarters in Lyon, where she receives critical instructions: go to the Paris morgue to receive secret evidence and then return to Virginia to carry out a mission. It's a mission that could ruin her career.Praise for Patricia Cornwell'Slick, fast-paced and brilliant' Heat'Cutting-edge' Sun'A pioneer of the genre of forensic psychological thriller' BBC'America's most stimulating and chilling writer of crime fiction' The Times'Devilishly clever' Sunday Times'She is a brilliant writer and I was absolutely gripped' Mail on Sunday'The top gun in this field' Daily Telegraph'Forget the pretenders. Cornwell reigns' Mirror'The Agatha Christie of the DNA age' Express'One of the best crime writers writing today' Guardian'Few writers match Patricia Cornwell when it comes to writing crime and her latest Scarpetta novel is one of her best' Daily Express'When it comes to the forensic sciences, nobody can touch Cornwell' New York Times Book Review

The fifteenth book in the Kay Scarpetta series, from No. 1 bestselling author Patricia Cornwell.'America's most chilling writer of crime fiction' The TimesThe 'book of the dead' is the morgue log, the ledger in which all cases are entered by hand. For Kay Scarpetta, however, it is about to have a new meaning. Fresh from her bruising battle with a psychopath in Florida, Scarpetta decides it's time for a change of pace. Moving to the historic city of Charleston, South Carolina, she opens a unique private forensic pathology practice, one in which she and her colleagues offer expert crime scene investigation and autopsies to communities lacking local access to competent death investigation and modern technology. It seems like an ideal situation, until the murders and other violent deaths begin. A woman is ritualistically murdered in her multi-million-dollar beach home. The body of an abused young boy is found dumped in a desolate marsh. A sixteen-year-old tennis star is found nude and mutilated near Piazza Navona in Rome. Scarpetta has dealt with many brutal and unusual crimes before, but never a string of them as baffling, or as terrifying, as the ones before her now. Before she is through, that book of the dead will contain many names - and the pen may be poised to write her own.

The twelfth book in the Kay Scarpetta series, from No. 1 bestselling author Patricia Cornwell. 'America's most chilling writer of crime fiction' The TimesAfter her resignation as Virginia's Chief Medical Examiner and the horrifying events which threatened her life in The Last Precinct, Kay Scarpetta has abandoned her elegant home in Richmond and is quietly living in Florida, beginning to get some balance back in her life and slowly establishing herself as a private forensic consultant. But her past won't let her rest, and her grief for Benton Wesley continues to grow, not diminish, as does the rage within Lucy, her niece. Then the architect of her changed fortunes contacts her from his cell on death row: deformed, blinded by Scarpetta's own actions, incarcerated in Texas strongest prison, Jean-Baptiste Chardonne still has the ability to terrify. But, unkown to Scarpetta, there are other forces behind the wolfman's apparent actions, invisibly shepherding her and those closest to her towards eliminating those who threaten them all. And it is all orchestrated by the one man in her life who knows every nuance of her soul. Visit the author's website at www.patricia-cornwell.com

The second book in the Kay Scarpetta series, from No. 1 bestselling author Patricia Cornwell. 'America's most chilling writer of crime fiction' The TimesA reclusive writer is dead. And her final manuscript has disappeared ...Someone is stalking Beryl Madison. Someone who spies on her and makes threatening, obscene phone-calls. Terrified, Beryl flees to Key West - but eventually she must return to her Richmond home. The very night she arrives, Beryl inexplicably invites her killer in ...Thus begins for Dr Kay Scarpetta the investigation of a crime that is as convoluted as it is bizarre. Why would Beryl open the door to someone who brutally slashed and then nearly decapitated her? Did she know her killer? Adding to the intrigue is Beryl's enigmatic relationship with a prize-winning author and the disappearance of her own manuscript. As Scarpetta retraces Beryl's footsteps, an investigation that begins in the laboratory with microscopes and lasers leads her deep into a nightmare that soon becomes her own.For more about Patricia Cornwell and her books visit her website atwww.patricia-cornwell.com

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLERA 'one-off' from the best-selling creator of the Dr Kay Scarpetta series, based on the serialisation in the New York Times.Moving between the chill of Cambridge, Massachusetts and the sultry humidity of Knoxville, Tennessee, Winston Garano, a police investigator, is instructed to look into a twenty-year-old murder case. Although Win reckons there are many more pressing current cases which should have higher priority, he gets on with the task, unaware of the can of worms he will prise open. With her hallmark qualities of deft characterisation, perfect research and tense story-telling, Patricia Cornwell has created a novel which entertains, intrigues and satisfies.'America's most chilling writer of crime fiction' The Times'One of the best crime writers writing today' The Guardian 'Devilishly clever' - Sunday Times

The third book in the Kay Scarpetta series, from No. 1 bestselling author Patricia Cornwell.'America's most chilling writer of crime fiction' The TimesA killer is stalking young lovers. Taking their lives . . . and leaving just one tantalising clue . . .When the bodies of young courting couples start turning up in remote woodlands areas, Dr Kay Scarpetta's task as Chief Medical Examiner is made more difficult by the effects of the elements. Eight times she must write that the cause of death is undetermined.But when the latest girl goes missing turns out to be the daughter of one of the most powerful women in America, Kay finds herself prey to political pressure and press harassment. As she starts to investigate, she finds that vital evidence is being withheld from her - or even faked. And all the time a cunning, sadistic killer is still at large . . .

Ethan Muller is struggling to establish his reputation as a dealer in the cut-throat world of contemporary art when he is alerted to a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity: in a decaying New York slum, an elderly tenant has disappeared, leaving behind a staggeringly large trove of original drawings and paintings. Nobody can tell Ethan much about the old man, except that he came and went in solitude for nearly forty years, his genius hidden and unacknowledged. Despite the fact that, strictly speaking, the artwork doesn't belong to him, Ethan takes the challenge and makes a name for the old man - and himself. Soon Ethan has to congratulate himself on his own genius: for storytelling and salesmanship. But suddenly the police are interested in talking to him. It seems that the missing artist had a nasty past, and the drawings hanging in the Muller Gallery have begun to look a lot less like art and a lot more like evidence. Sucked into an investigation four decades cold, Ethan will uncover a secret legacy of shame and death, one that will touch horrifyingly close to home - and leave him fearing for his own life.

'A cracking read ' Lynn Barber, ObserverThe Mitford Girls tells the true story behind the gaiety and frivolity of the six Mitford daughters - and the facts are as sensational as any novel: Nancy, whose bright social existence masked an obsessional doomed love which soured her success; Pam, a countrywoman married to one of the best brains in Europe; Diana, an iconic beauty, who was already married when at 22 she fell in love with Oswald Moseley, the leader of the British fascists; Unity, who romantically in love with Hitler, became a member of his inner circle before shooting herself in the temple when WWII was declared; Jessica, the family rebel, who declared herself a communist in the schoolroom and the youngest sister, Debo, who became the Duchess of Devonshire.This is an extraordinary story of an extraordinary family, containing much new material, based on exclusive access to Mitford archives.

Freya Nakamachi-47 has some major existential issues. She's the perfect concubine, designed to please her human masters - hardwired to become aroused at the sight mere of a human male. There's just one problem: she came off the production line a year after the human species went extinct. Whatever else she may be, Freya Nakamachi-47 is gloriously obsolete. But the rigid social hierarchy that has risen in the 200 years since the last human died, places beings such as Freya very near the bottom. So when she has a run-in on Venus with a murderous aristocrat, she needs passage off-world in a hurry - and can't be too fussy about how she pays her way.If Venus was a frying pan, Mercury is the fire - and soon she's going to be running for her life. Because the job she's taken as a courier has drawn her to the attention of powerful and dangerous people, and they don't just want the package she's carrying. They want her soul ...

In the twenty-first century man created the Eschaton, a . It pushed Earth through the greatest technological evolution ever known, while warning that time travel is forbidden, and transgressors will be eliminated.Distant descendants of this ultra high-tech Earth live in parochial simplicity on the far-flung worlds of the New Republic. Their way of life is threatened by the arrival of an alien information plague known as the Festival. As forbidden technologies are literally dropped from the sky, suppressed political factions descend into revolutionary turmoil. A battle fleet is sent from Earth to destroy the Festival, but Spaceship engineer Martin Springfield and U.N. diplomat Rachel Mansour have been assigned rather different tasks. Their orders are to diffuse the crisis or to sabotage the New Republic's war-fleet, whatever the cost, before the Eschaton takes hostile action on a galactic scale.

Flanagan (who is, for want of a better word, a pirate) has a plan. It seems relatively simple: kidnap Lena, the Cheo's daughter, demand a vast ransom for her safe return, sit back and wait. Only the Cheo, despotic ruler of the known universe, isn't playing ball.Flanagan and his crew have seen this before, of course, but since they've learned a few tricks from the bad old days (being particularly bad if you happen to have been one of the myriad sons or daughters the Cheo let die rather than give in to blackmail) and since they know something about Lena that should make the plan foolproof, the Cheo's defiance is a major setback. It is a situation that calls for extreme measures. Luckily, Flanagan has considerable experience in this area. . .

I know that I'm going to get stick over this book, but there you go - it can't be helped. And some readers might think I'm a terrible liar when they read what follows, but everything in this book is true. Enough lies have been told about me, without me adding to them.' Famous as the lovable couch potato Jim Royle of The Royle Family, Ricky Tomlinson has entertained millions without ever leaving his armchair. Now, in his long-awaited autobiography, he surprises yet again with a remarkable story of love, hardship, humour, injustice and triumph. His mother used to tell him that he had lived three lives, but even she miscounted. He has been a plasterer, banjo player, stand-up comic, union agitator, political activist, film extra, award-winning actor and unwilling guest of Her Majesty's prison service. Renowned and respected for his honesty, wit and integrity, Ricky brings all of these qualities to his extraordinary, moving and inspiring story.

Latifa was born into an educated middle-class Afghan family in Kabul in 1980. She dreamed of one day of becoming a journalist, she was interested in fashion, movies and friends. Her father was in the import/export business and her mother was a doctor.Then in September 1996, Taliban soldiers seized power in Kabul. From that moment, Latifa, just 16 years old became a prisoner in her own home. Her school was closed. Her mother was banned from working. The simplest and most basic freedoms - walking down the street, looking out a window - were no longer hers. She was now forced to wear a chadri. My Forbidden Face provides a poignant and highly personal account of life under the Taliban regime. With painful honesty and clarity Latifa describes the way she watched her world falling apart, in the name of a fanatical interpretation of a faith that she could not comprehend. Her voice captures a lost innocence, but also echoes her determination to live in freedom and hope. Earlier this year, Latifa and her parents escaped Afghanistan with the help of a French-based Afghan resistance group.

The second volume of Woodruff's memoirs starts with his arrival in the EastEnd of London in the early 1930s. He finds lodgings with a Cockney family inStratford, where he shares a single bed (head to toe) with a stonebreaker.He thinks himself lucky to get a job at an iron foundry until he faces thegruelling, back-breaking work. But William is indomitable. To find his oldsweetheart, he one day cycles to Berkhamstead. She's not there and hereturns in a snowstorm - it takes him eight hours to reach friends in thewest of London and then, after three hours sleep, another four to get towork on time.Eventually he joins a night school to 'get some learnin'; his first whitecollar job starts for the water board in S( Brettenham House! His studiesfinally take him to the Catholic Workers College (which is now PlaterCollege), Oxford.How the foundry worker became a scholar, how war interrupted his studies -and William's concluding description of returning from war to meet the sonhe's never seen - is a deeply moving story.

As a five-year-old, George Alagiah emigrated with his family to Ghana - the first African country to attain independence from the British Empire. A PASSAGE TO AFRICA is Alagiah's shattering catalogue of atrocities crafted into a portrait of Africa that is infused with hope, insight and outrage. In vivid and evocative prose and with a fine eye for detail Alagiah's viewpoint is spiked with the freshness of the young George on his arrival in Ghana, the wonder with which he recounts his first impressions of Africa and the affection with which he dresses his stories of his early family life. A sense of possibility lingers, even though the book is full of uncomfortable truths. It is a book neatly balanced on his integrity and sense of obligation in his role as a writer and reporter. The shock of recognition is always there, but it is the personal element that gives A PASSAGE TO AFRICA its originality. Africa becomes not only a group of nations or a vast continent, but an epic of individual pride and suffering.

'...indescribably addictive. I can heartily recommend both Shadow and Pattern to fantasy connoisseurs who prefer a little more bite from their fiction. Do try this most excellent of sagas. I really don't think you'll be disappointed.' - THE ALIEN ONLINE'This is exactly what the fantasy genre needs. Mature, confident prose from a talented writer...compelling, assured, intelligent - five stars' - SFXIn a world he does not know, Poldarn's future is uncertain. Pursued by invisible enemies, and haunted by the demons of his past, nobody can be trusted - not even himself, it seems. Attempting to piece together his own life from whatever scattered fragments he can find and dreams that hide as much as they reveal has brought him nothing but trouble. Now all he craves is peace. But will he find it on the island he believes to be his childhood home? Or will this place hold more terrors for him to confront?K.J. Parker's SHADOW began a ground-breaking new series that takes fantasy into remarkable new territory. Now, with PATTERN, the extraordinary story of Poldarn takes a new shape.Books by K.J. Parker:Fencer TrilogyThe Colours in the SteelThe Belly of the BowThe Proof HouseScavenger TrilogyShadowPatternMemoryEngineer TrilogyDevices and DesiresEvil for EvilThe EscapementSaloninusBlue and GoldThe Devil You KnowTwo of SwordsThe Two of Swords: Part 1The Two of Swords: Part 2The Two of Swords: Part 3NovelsThe CompanyThe Folding KnifeThe HammerSharpsSavagesSixteen Ways to Defend a Walled CityMy Beautiful Life

What happens when you are sharing a flat with Prince Edward and twenty pygmies? When an artificial-foot freedom fighter throws a British-made foot at the Chairman of the Communist Party of China and is then bundled off to a Mobile Prison made by the Ford Motor Company? Just what is Jonathan Aitken's Divas of Rock Show? Will Dong Xiao Ping make it to Tower Records to buy the latest Status Quo album? What of The Lady Di Chinese Restaurant in Walthamstow which specialises in radishes carved in the shape of British Prime Ministers? Will Andrew Lloyd Webber complete his new musical 'Dog Breeder'? Will Willie Whitelaw marry his parrot? Will our hero make that engagement at the Gonk factory in Leeds?As a stand-up comedian, Harry Hill is the equal of Eddie Izzard, Rich Hall and Frank Skinner. Performing bareback for the first time, the self-styled debonaire dachshund now makes his fiction debut.

I stopped off at the Peace Gardens - a memorial straddling the US-Canadian border commemorating 'Lasting Peace Between America and Canada', as if there had ever been a problem. Show me a garden commemorating Peace Between America and, say, Iraq and I'll be impressed. America is like a beauty contestant. It's gorgeous, until it opens its mouth.'From the similarities between US gun laws and British drinking hours, to what cryptic crosswords really tell us about the British psyche, American in London Rich Hall casts a keen eye on the lunatic contradictions and weird marvels of his native and adoptive homelands.'Full of acute left-field reflections on America and Americans, plus some marvellously irreverent sketches ...wise, witty and strangely true' GUARDIAN