Mike is called to investigate a series of burglaries, which are sending shock waves through the area. Remote farmhouses appear to be the targets, which stretches Mike's small team to the limits. Then, as winter sets in, two dogs are found running loose - Mike fears the owner has gone missing in the dreadful weather and is forced to call on a full-scale search. Throw in a night-time operation in an empty museum, and the harrowing business of taking three children into care against their mother's wishes, and it's quite a case-load for the author of Now Then, Lad, You're Coming With Me, Lad, Not On My Patch, Lad and Just the Job, Lad.

    By the time the war ended in May 1945, he was indicted for 'mass murder'. Hunted by the Soviets, the Americans, the Poles and the British, as well as groups of Jews, Wächter went on the run. He spent three years hiding in the Austrian Alps, assisted by his wife Charlotte, before making his way to Rome where he was helped by a Vatican bishop. He remained there for three months. While preparing to travel to Argentina on the 'ratline' he died unexpectedly, in July 1949, a few days after spending a weekend with an 'old comrade'.In The Ratline Philippe Sands offers a unique account of the daily life of a senior Nazi and fugitive, and of his wife. Drawing on a remarkable archive of family letters and diaries, he unveils a fascinating insight into life before and during the war, on the run, in Rome, and into the Cold War. Eventually the door is unlocked to a mystery that haunts Wächter's youngest son, who continues to believe his father was a good man - what happened to Otto Wächter, and how did he die?

    But she has never told the story of her life before fame. Until now.In Home: A Memoir of My Early Years, Julie takes her readers on a warm, moving, and often humorous journey from a difficult upbringing in war-torn Britain to the brink of international stardom in America. Her memoir begins in 1935, when Julie was born to an aspiring vaudevillian mother and a teacher father, and takes readers to 1962, when Walt Disney himself saw her on Broadway and cast her as the world's most famous nanny.Along the way, she weathered the London Blitz of World War II; her parents' painful divorce; her mother's turbulent second marriage to Canadian tenor Ted Andrews, and a childhood spent on radio, in music halls, and giving concert performances all over England. Julie's professional career began at the age of twelve, and in 1948 she became the youngest solo performer ever to participate in a Royal Command Performance before the Queen. When only eighteen, she left home for the United States to make her Broadway debut in The Boy Friend, and thus began her meteoric rise to stardom.Home is filled with numerous anecdotes, including stories of performing in My Fair Lady with Rex Harrison on Broadway and in the West End, and in Camelot with Richard Burton on Broadway; her first marriage to famed set and costume designer Tony Walton, culminating with the birth of their daughter, Emma; and the call from Hollywood and what lay beyond.Julie Andrews' career has flourished over seven decades. From her legendary Broadway performances, to her roles in such iconic films as The Sound of Music, Mary Poppins, Thoroughly Modern Millie, Hawaii, 10, and The Princess Diaries, to her award-winning television appearances, multiple album releases, concert tours, international humanitarian work, best-selling children's books, and championship of literacy, Julie's influence spans generations. Today, she lives with her husband of thirty-eight years, the acclaimed writer/director Blake Edwards; they have five children and seven grandchildren.

    Gen. McClellan: “What troops are those fighting in the Pike?” Maj. Gen. Hooker: “General Gibbon’s brigade of Western men.” Maj. Gen. McClellan: “They must be made of iron.” And so, during the Battle of South Mountain, a prelude to the Battle of Antietam, this brigade earned its famous title as the “Iron Brigade”. Once McClellan had heard of their actions during the Second Battle of Bull Run, where they were facing off against a superior force under Stonewall Jackson, he is said to have stated that they were the “best troops in the world.” Rufus R. Dawes was a captain with the 6th Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry, that along with 2nd and 7th Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry Regiments, the 19th Indiana, Battery B of the 4th U.S. Light Artillery, and later in the war the 24th Michigan, formed the Iron Brigade. Although only in his early twenties at the beginning of the war he rapidly became an important leader in the famous brigade and by the end of the war was brevetted as a brigadier general for meritorious service. One of his most famous actions was on the first day of the Battle of Gettysburg when he led a counterattack on the confederate forces under Brigadier General Joseph R. Davis and forced the surrender of more than two hundred enemy soldiers. Service With the Sixth Wisconsin Volunteers records in brilliant detail all of the actions that he and his regiment were involved in, including Second Bull Run, Antietam, Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, Wilderness, Spotsylvania Court House, Cold Harbor and Petersburg. Yet this book is not simply an account of the military activities that took place as he also recorded his feelings and moods, and included details about daily camp life and individual soldiers. Rufus Dawes derived all of the books material from his diaries and letters. He realized the value of a statement made at the moment as to his experiences, and he appreciated fully the treacherous nature of memory. He believed contemporaneous expression in letters and diaries provided material of historical value. He had the material and the ability to write a superb history of the grueling service of this famous regiment, but he felt that the story of his personal experiences and impressions written at the time would be of greater value, and so this book is not only account of the regiment, it is also a very personal account of one man’s view of the Civil War. This book deserves to be read and enjoyed by all who wish to hear more about this brutal but fascinating conflict and to get to the heart of what the soldiers saw and thought. Rufus R. Dawes was a military officer in the Union Army during the American Civil War. After the war he became a businessman, Congressman and author. His book Service With the Sixth Wisconsin Volunteers was first published in 1890. He passed away in 1899.

    Angela Patrick was 19 years old, enjoying her first job working in the City, when her life turned upside down. A brief fling with a charismatic charmer left her pregnant, unmarried and facing a stark future. Being under 21, she was still under the governance of her parents, strict Catholics who insisted she have the baby in secret and then put it up for adoption. Shunned by her family and forced to leave her job, Angela was sent to an imposing-looking convent for unmarried mothers in north-east London. Run like a Victorian workhouse, conditions in the convent were decidedly Spartan. Vilified and degraded by the nuns for her 'wickedness', her only comfort came from the other pregnant girls, all knowing they too would have to give up their babies. After a terrifying labour with no pain relief, Angela gave birth to a beautiful son, Paul, with whom she fell instantly in love. At eight weeks he was taken from her and forcibly put up for adoption, leaving Angela bereft and heartbroken. Not a day went by without Angela thinking about him. Then, thirty years later, she received a letter. It was from Paul, and a reunion was arranged. This vital slice of social history is a shocking reminder of how cultural mores have changed around the issue of single motherhood since the early 1960s. It is also an honest, heartfelt memoir that explores the closest of human bonds.

    Sheba is an elderly one-eared cat. When the Blitz begins, how will they survive? It's the start of the Second World War and Bark and Howl are lost in the dark maze of tunnels under London. With Sheba's help, they learn how to survive. But when the bombs begin to fall, the puppies become separated. As the attacks continue, Bark and Howl are frightened, but they know the tunnels so well - they're the only ones who can lead hundreds of trapped people out of danger. Will Bark and Howl find each other - and be victorious in leading Londoners to safety?

    It had been her ‘soul place’ as a child, she said – a holiday home for her and her family, but much more – a sanctuary, a refuge. In the 1930s, she had been forced to leave the house, fleeing to England as the Nazis swept to power. The trip, she said, was a chance to see it one last time, to remember it as it was. But the house had changed. Nearly twenty years later Thomas returned to the house. It was government property now, derelict, and soon to be demolished. It was his legacy, one that had been loved, abandoned, fought over – a house his grandmother had desired until her death. Could it be saved? And should it be saved?He began to make tentative enquiries – speaking to neighbours and villagers, visiting archives, unearthing secrets that had lain hidden for decades. Slowly he began to piece together the lives of the five families who had lived there – a wealthy landowner, a prosperous Jewish family, a renowned composer, a widower and her children, a Stasi informant. All had made the house their home, and all – bar one – had been forced out. The house had been the site of domestic bliss and of contentment, but also of terrible grief and tragedy. It had weathered storms, fires and abandonment, witnessed violence, betrayals and murders, had withstood the trauma of a world war, and the dividing of a nation.As the story of the house began to take shape, Thomas realized that there was a chance to save it – but in doing so, he would have to resolve his own family’s feelings towards their former homeland – and a hatred handed down through the generations.The House by the Lake is a groundbreaking and revelatory new history of Germany over a tumultuous century, told through the story of a small wooden house. Breathtaking in scope, intimate in its detail, it is the long-awaited new history from the author of the bestselling Hanns and Rudolf.

    The secret, though, that surrounded my parents’ unhappy life together, was divulged to me by accident . . .’ Hidden under some papers in his father’s bureau, the sixteen-year-old Derek Malcolm finds a book by the famous criminologist Edgar Lustgarten called The Judges and the Damned. Browsing through the Contents pages Derek reads, ‘Mr Justice McCardie tries Lieutenant Malcolm – page 33.’ But there is no page 33. The whole chapter has been ripped out of the book. Slowly but surely, the shocking truth emerges: that Derek’s father, shot his wife’s lover and was acquitted at a famous trial at the Old Bailey. The trial was unique in British legal history as the first case of a crime passionel, where a guilty man is set free, on the grounds of self-defence. Husband and wife lived together unhappily ever after, raising Derek in their wake. Then, in a dramatic twist, following his father’s death, Derek receives an open postcard from his Aunt Phyllis, informing him that his real father is the Italian Ambassador to London . . . By turns laconic and affectionate, Derek Malcolm has written a richly evocative memoir of a family sinking into hopeless disrepair. Derek Malcolm was chief film critic of the Guardian for thirty years and still writes for the paper. Educated at Eton and Merton College, Oxford, he became first a steeplechase rider and then an actor after leaving university. He worked as a journalist in the sixties, first in Cheltenham and then with the Guardian where he was a features sub-editor and writer, racing correspondent and finally film critic. He directed the London Film Festival for a spell in the 80s and is now President of both the International Film Critics Association and the British Federation of Film Societies. He lives with his wife Sarah Gristwood in London and Kent and has published two books – one on Robert Mitchum and another on his favourite 100 films. He is a frequent broadcaster on radio and television and a veteran of film festival juries all over the world.

    Some had got lost, others were brought by defectors; some were lured through electronic countermeasures by the RAF, others brought down in unusual combat circumstances. All manner of types appeared He111, Go145, Me110, Ju88, Me109 F and G, FW190, Do217 and all were of great interest to the RAF. In some cases aircraft were repaired and test flown, betraying vital and invaluable information. Distinguished author Andy Saunders examines a selection of such fascinating cases and draws upon his own research, interviews, official reports and eyewitness accounts to bring alive these truly unusual accounts, all richly illustrated with contemporary photographs."

    This engaging account offers readers an example of how the gospel and devoted individuals can affect the course of history and changes the hearts of humanity.

    Perfect for fans of Katie Flynn.It is 1939 and in the town of Dartford, Grace, Sally and twins Daisy and Rose, are determined to do their bit when war is declared. Grace, desperate to get away from her sad home life, signs up for the Land Army. Sally’s dream of stage school is thwarted by the war, but she finds hope in an unexpected place.For the twins, nothing has prepared them for the shock of the blitz and the nightly raids on their hometown. Rose signs on at the local munitions factory, but with her brothers away fighting, Daisy is needed at home in her father’s greengrocer shop.When she unwittingly trespasses on a wealthy estate and meets the aristocratic flying ace, Adair, Daisy initially dismisses him as a ‘toff’. But they become friends and Adair encourages Daisy to indulge her passion for aeroplanes. Could Daisy’s dream of being a pilot be closer than she thinks? And in these uncertain times, a girl would have to be crazy to fall in love, wouldn’t she?

    Living hand-to-mouth in a tumbledown cottage in the Forest of Dean, Foley - 'our Poll' - had a loving family and the woods and streams of a forest 'better than heaven' as a playground. But a brother and sister were dead in infancy, bread had to be begged from kindly neighbours and she never had a new pair of shoes or a shop-bought doll. And most terrible of all, like her sister before her, at fourteen little Poll had to leave her beloved forest for the city, bound for a life in service among London's grey terraces.

     In this volume he relates the first four years of his outdoor odyssey, from his initial escapist trips, through his gradual move towards full-time outdoor living, to his decision to put the harsh British winters behind him and head off to the more benign climate of southern Spain. Sincere but light-hearted, this story recounts his experiences in Lancashire, Yorkshire and Scotland, alongside the mental journey leading to his conviction that a conventional life is no longer for him, despite the well-meaning advice of his family and friends. The second and final part of Tony’s story will be available this winter.

    Adam was an eccentric Buddhist yogi passing as a hard-working dad. Bella was fourteen and wanted to be normal. Sophia was up for anything that involved skipping school. Together, they shouldered backpacks, walked away from their California life of all-night births, carpool schedules, and Cal Skate, and criss-crossed India and Nepal for eight months―a journey that led them to His Holiness the Dalai Lama, the tree where the Buddha sat, and the arms of Amma the Divine Mother. From the banks of the Ganges to the Himalayan roof of the world, this enthralling memoir is an unforgettable odyssey, a moving meditation on modern family life, and a spiritual quest, written with humor and honesty―and filled with love and awe.