Ben Giles

The breathtaking, unputdownable insider account of Britain's most hidden profession What happens after the police tape comes down? Ben Giles has spent thirty years cleaning what most people can't bear to imagine. Dead bodies decomposing for weeks. Kitchen floors painted with blood. Hoarders' homes where the filth tells stories of unimaginable loneliness. A whale carcass lodged on a cargo ship. This is the Britain you never see – until someone needs to make it disappear. Starting with nothing but a bucket of Dettol and a can-do attitude, Giles built the UK's leading biohazard cleaning network. From industrial spillages to animal remains, he's faced horrors that would break most people – and taught hundreds of people to do the same, in full hazmat gear. Yet threaded through the gore and dark humour is something unexpected: profound compassion for the lives interrupted, the families destroyed, and the deaths that society prefers to forget. The Specialist takes you behind the scenes of suicides, murders, and tragic accidents — revealing not just which chemicals remove bloodstains, and how, but what violence, neglect, and loss actually look like when the rest of us can only look away. It's unflinching, occasionally hilarious, and utterly unforgettable.

Of all the counties surrounding London, Buckinghamshire and Berkshire are most closely associated with the title 'home counties' and both contain large stretches of what is thought of as quintessential English countryside. The Chilterns dominate the south, a plateau-like maze of chalk hills covered with beechwoods, villages and fields rising from the Thames Valley to a steep northern escarpment, and at its foot the fertile farmland of the Vale of Aylesbury stretches northwards towards the River Great Ouse and the start of the Midlands beyond. Across the Thames lies the more densely populated East Berkshire, which nevertheless still boasts some wonderful countryside, including the landscaped parkland of Windsor Castle.

The Isle of Wight in the English Channel is England's largest island, separated from the mainland by the Solent but easily and quickly accessible from the south coast. Designated a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve, the mild climate and slower pace of life has long attracted holiday-makers and curious walkers who come to explore the island's rolling chalkland hills, peaceful woodland paths and sandy beaches and coves. The 40 walks in this volume make the most of the island's well-maintained trails - which include some of the most celebrated clifftop walks in southern England - as well as many lesser-known gems waiting to be discovered on this Treasure Island.