The inspirational tale of a self-obsessed writer who finds himself caught up in the extraordinary stories of young immigrant girls in Sweden.
In The Shadow Girls, Henning Mankell tells the extraordinary stories of three young women who are determined to overcome the hardships they face to take control of their own lives. This inspiring novel encompasses both humour and tragedy and illuminates our understanding of those left on the fringes of society.
Geneva, 2012. When a Russian intelligence officer approaches MI6 with vital information about the imminent cyber-sabotage of an Anglo-American Defence programme, he refuses to talk to anyone but Liz Carlyle of MI5. But who is he, and what is his connection to the British intelligence officer? As Liz and her team hunt for a mole inside the MOD, the trail leads them from Geneva, to Marseilles and into a labyrinth of international intrigue, in a race against time to stop the Cold War heating up once again…
Author Note: Dame Stella Rimington joined the Security Service (MI5) in 1968. During her career she worked in all the main fields of the Service: counter-subversion, counter-espionage and counter-terrorism. She was appointed Director General in 1992, the first woman to hold the post. She has written her autobiography and five Liz Carlyle novels. She lives in London and Norfolk.
Harry Bosch links the bullet from a recent crime to a file from 1992, the killing of a young female photographer during the L.A. riots. Harry originally investigated the murder, but it was then handed off to the Riot Crimes Task Force and never solved.
Now Bosch’s ballistics match indicates that her death was not random violence, but something more personal, and connected to a deeper intrigue. Like an investigator combing through the wreckage after a plane crash, Bosch searches for the “black box,” the one piece of evidence that will pull the case together.
Riveting and relentlessly paced, THE BLACK BOX leads Harry Bosch, “one of the greats of crime fiction” (New York Daily News), into one of his most fraught and perilous cases.
Rebus is back!
The brand-new crime novel from number-one bestselling author Ian Rankin.
It’s twenty-five years since John Rebus appeared on the scene, and five years since he retired. But 2012 sees his return in STANDING IN ANOTHER MAN’S GRAVE. Not only is Rebus as stubborn and anarchic as ever, but he finds himself in trouble with Rankin’s latest creation, Malcolm Fox of Edinburgh’s internal affairs unit.
Available in BLRC: F RAN
Two Brothersis a heartrending story of two boys growing up under the darkening shadow of the Nazis. Born in Berlin in 1920 and raised by the same parents, one boy is Jewish, his adopted brother is Aryan. At first, their origins are irrelevant. But as the political landscape changes they are forced to make decisions with horrifying consequences.
Link to Richard Glover interviewing Ben Elton
Available in BLRC: F ELT
The thrilling first book in the bestselling Harry Hole series, never before published in English
HARRY IS OUT OF HIS DEPTH.
Detective Harry Hole is meant to keep out of trouble. A young Norwegian girl taking a gap year in Sydney has been murdered, and Harry has been sent to Australia to assist in any way he can.
HE’S NOT SUPPOSED TO GET TOO INVOLVED.
When the team unearths a string of unsolved murders and disappearances, nothing will stop Harry from finding out the truth. The hunt for a serial killer is on, but the murderer will talk only to Harry.
HE MIGHT JUST BE THE Next VICTIM.
Appearing in English for the first time, The Bat is the legendary first novel from the worldwide phenomenon Jo Nesbo.
Available in BLRC: F NES
The flamboyant, charming and brilliant Tom Wills was Australia’s first superstar sportsman.
Tom grew up in the bush and was sent to the famous Rugby school in the UK in the 1850s.He became captain of their cricket team, and eventually a star of the game in Victorian England.
Back in Australia Tom sat with some friends in a Melbourne pub, and came up with a game designed to keep cricket players fit in the off season: Australian Rules football.
Tragically Tom’s downfall was shocking and his death horribly gruesome.
Greg tells the story of Tom’s quite amazing life in his book Tom Wills: First Wild Man of Australian Sport
Short-listed, Specsavers National Book Awards, International Author of the Year, United Kingdom, 2012
Paul Lohman and his wife Claire are going out to dinner with Paul’s brother Serge, a charismatic and ambitious politician, and his wife Babette. Paul knows the evening will not be fun. The restaurant will be over-priced and pretentious, the head waiter will bore on about the organically certified free-range this and artisan-fed that, and almost everything about Serge, especially his success, will infuriate Paul.
But as the evening wears on it becomes clear that tonight’s dinner will be even more difficult than usual. There is something the two couples have to discuss. It’s about their teenage sons and the very bad things they have been doing.
And it’s about how far two sets of parents will go to save their children from the consequences of their actions.
Available to BLRC: F KOC
Listen to Herman’s interviews on ABC Radio National Books and Arts Daily or 4BC News Talk.
Haunting. What starts as a story about a Bipolar artist becomes much more than a simple tale of adversity. Moving backward and forward in time, revealing snippets of the past via the exhibit notes from the artist’s post-humous exhibition, this story sucks you in and leaves you unable to walk away without knowing more. You find yourself learning more from what is left unsaid than from what is on the page.
With Cornwall as a backdrop, the narrative touches on mental illness, family, love, religion, sexuality and hope – but without any of them ever being heavy-handed or overdone. The empathy I felt for the characters and the realism with which they were written left me certain that there was no one to blame for the sadness, and evryone, no matter how damaged, responsible for the fragile happiness.
Not a book to be read when feeling low, the ultimate message is beautiful but costly.
Available in BLRC: F GAL
The long-awaited new novel from the award-winning author of The Grass Sister tells the story of two generations of the Nancarrow family and the high-jumping horse circuit prior to the Second World War. A love story of impossible beauty and sadness, it is also a chronicle of dreams ‘turned inside out’, and miracles that never last, framed against a world both tender and unspeakably hard.
Available in BLRC: F MEA