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When the body of Rufus Moorcroft, a middle-aged widower with a distinguished war record, is found in his summerhouse, the verdict is suicide. But both reporter Jill Francis and her lover, Detective Richard Thornhill, approaching the case from different angles, discover there's more to it than that. The sixth instalment in the acclaimed Lydmouth series.

We may not always see what truly hides within the minds and hearts of certain people, and where we believe is a good, pure individual, lays a terrible murderer capable of the most horrible acts. Robert Berdella was one such man, a helpful and friendly individual who - in a spree separated by a few years - managed to capture and horrifically torture seven young men, murdering six along the way. Control and dominance were his tools, pain was his method.

First he considers moments in history - Periclean Athens, the English Civil War, the American and French Revolutions, among them - in which the challenges we face today were first encountered and what solutions, however imperfect, were found. Then he lays bare the specific problems of democracy in the 21st century and maps out a set of urgently needed reforms. With the advent of authoritarian leaders and the simultaneous rise of populism, representative democracy appears to be caught between a rock and a hard place, yet it is this space that it must occupy, says Grayling, if a civilised society that looks after all its people is to flourish.

Complete with fascinating biographies by Tony Medawar of all the featured authors, this latest volume in the annual Bodies from the Library series once again brings into the daylight the forgotten, the lost and the unknown, and is an indispensable collection for any bookshelf.

It all started with a contract signed by him, then by me, while our families watched. While my father sat silent, a man defeated, giving his daughter to the Benedetti monsters. I obeyed. I played my part. I signed my name and gave away my life. I became their living, breathing trophy, a constant symbol of their power over us. That was five years ago. Then came the time for him to claim me. For Salvatore Benedetti to own me.

A year has passed, and in this third novel of the Pop Larkin series, Pop Larkin is preparing to build the bungalow he promised Charley and Mariette upon their engagement. He buys a country home slated for demolition, intending to convert it for the two, but it is not long before a London couple persuade him to sell it. Pop, ever the trickster, sells it for an extortionate price, as the two social climbers know little about country life.

Oxford, Autumn 1353. St. Frideswide's Fair is a great annual event in Oxford, bringing together merchants and buyers from all over England and Wales, and from as far away as Flanders and France. Yet the earnings from the fair, granted to the Priory of St. Frideswide centuries before, are resented by the town, and resentment can turn to violence. Under the unscrupulous Prior de Hungerford, even more trouble is brewing.

In the final book of the series that began with The Darling Buds of May, the fun-loving Pop Larkin finds himself confined to a bed following a mild heart attack - caused by a little too much of what he fancied. Ma battles with the doctors as she attempts to find an adequate cure, but it turns out that a seductive nurse is all he needs. Pa's spirits truly recover themselves when he is forced to defend his home from the ministry's railway plans. This concludes the tales of H. E. Bates' Larkin family.

Nick is still settling into his role at the Ashfordly Section police station, and he’s drawn the short straw: night duty. Alone in the midnight hours with nothing but dead leaves, stray cats and legends of ghosts and ghoulies to accompany him. A sleeping village doesn’t mean a simple shift, though. Between the early risers of the farming community, a badger with a sweet tooth and getting to know his new workmates, there’s no time for Nick to kick his feet up in the station.

Written by a host of top radio writers and starring some of Britain's finest actors, these sparkling, beautifully crafted comedy dramas are centred around people with unconscious yearnings. From the serial seducer to the lonely mother's boy, each is looking for love - but will they find it?

David Sedgwick’s latest book takes the listener on a disturbing journey deep into the realms of mistruth and deception to reveal, for the very first time, the many tricks and subterfuges used by the British Broadcasting Corporation. Every time we engage with BBC content, the author argues, we are exposing ourselves to a very dark art: the art of brainwashing. Wilful, deceitful and incessant, Orwellian parallels define the modern corporation and should chill the soul of all who cherish freedom and liberty. Mind control is here. This is not fiction.

Chaucer's greatest work, written towards the end of the fourteenth century, paints a brilliant picture of medieval life, society and values. The stories range from the romantic, courtly idealism of "The Knight's Tale" to the joyous bawdy of the Miller's; all are told with a freshness and vigor in this modern verse translation that make them a delight to hear.

After the coldest night of the year, they find the man's body. He is dangling from the Hanging Tree on the outskirts of a village near Lydmouth, with his trousers round his ankles. Is it suicide, murder, or accidental death resulting from some bizarre sexual practice? Journalist Jill Francis and Detective Inspector Thornhill become involved in the case in separate ways.

The year is 1851. It's a time of radical change in Britain, when industrial miracles and artistic innovations rub shoulders with political unrest, poverty and disease. It's also a turbulent time in the private life of Charles Dickens, as he copes with a double bereavement and early signs that his marriage is falling apart. But this formative year will become perhaps the greatest turning point in Dickens' career, as he embraces his calling as a chronicler of ordinary people's lives and develops a new form of writing that will reveal just how interconnected the world is becoming.

The Late Middle Ages-the two centuries from c. 1300 to c. 1500 - might seem like a distant era, but students of history are still trying to reach a consensus about how it should be interpreted. Was it an era of calamity or rebirth? Was it still clearly medieval or the period in which humanity took its first decisive steps into modernity? These 24 provocative lectures introduce you to the age's major events, personalities, and developments, and arms you with the essentials you need to form your own ideas about this age of extremes.

A missing young girl. A horrifying conspiracy. Jack Widow will kill to save her. Under a sweltering Texas landscape, Jack Widow waits at a dust-covered bus station, when he meets Claire Hood, a grandmother, clearly in distress. Claire is on a solo mission to rescue her abducted granddaughter. Minutes after meeting her, the unthinkable happens. Claire drops dead - natural causes. Right there in front of Widow. Widow isn’t the type of guy to let wrongs go. He picks up her bus ticket and takes her place on a quest that will give him a reason to kill.

Annapolis. The U.S. Naval Academy. Here begins Widow's journey—a path from a promising naval career to a crossroads of life and death. Rewind to Widow's final days as a twenty-two-year-old midshipman, where a dying woman's request catapults him into a whirlwind of lies and buried truths. Her last request? For Widow to solve the mystery of her sister's cold-case murder. Aided by The Shadow Club—a secretive cabal of the world's sharpest investigators—Widow is lured into a world where justice is a shadow play of vengeance and power.

Raz Frewer just made a bet with the Devil. He needs a cure to save his dying wife, and Lucifer has it—a mystical lamp, but its pieces were scattered around the globe centuries earlier. If he can find them, he'll get his cure; if he can't, the Devil gets his soul.

This must-listen LGBTQ+ romance collection by Davidson King includes the full Joker's Sin series: My Whole World, To Die For, Heart Beats, and Taste of Fear.

One of Ngaio Marsh’s most famous murder mysteries, which introduces Inspector Alleyn to his future wife, the irrepressible Agatha Troy. It started as a student exercise, the knife under the drape, the model’s pose chalked in place. But before Agatha Troy, artist and instructor, returns to the class, the pose has been reenacted in earnest: the model is dead, fixed forever in one of the most dramatic poses Troy has ever seen. It’s a difficult case for Chief Detective Inspector Alleyn.