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Gallows Thief is a detective story, set in Regency London, a time when there were no detectives as such. There was a very busy gallows, however. This was a period when the English and Welsh gallows were at their busiest and, very occasionally, the go vernment appointed an 'Investigator' to look into a conviction. That Investigator is my hero and detective, a man who was an army officer, but who, since the battle of Waterloo (it had to get in somehow) has fallen on hard times.

Murder, stolen plans, a mysterious death and a menage a trois - four intriguing novellas featuring Hercule Poirot...How did a woman holding a pistol in her right hand manage to shoot herself in the left temple? What was the link between a ghost sighting and the disappearance of top secert military plans? How did the bullet that killed Sir Gervase shatter a mirror in another part of the room? And who destroyed the 'eternal triangle' of love involving renowned beauty, Valentine Chantry? Hercule Poirot is faced with four mystifying cases -- Murder in the Mews, The Incredible Theft, Dead Man's Mirror and Triangle at Rhodes -- each a miniature classic of characterisation, incident and suspense.

Darren Shan, Vampire Prince and vampaneze killer, faces his worst nightmare yet - school! But homework is the least of Darren's problems. Bodies are piling up. Time is running out. And the past is catching up with the hunters fast!

There's more than petty theft going on in a London youth hostel...An outbreak of kleptomania at a student hostel was not normally the sort of crime that aroused Hercule Poirot's interest. But when he saw the list of stolen and vandalized items -- including a stethoscope, some old flannel trousers, a box of chocolates, a slashed rucksack and a diamond ring found in a bowl of soup -- he congratulated the warden, Mrs Hubbard, on a 'unique and beautiful problem'. The list made absolutely no sense at all. But, reasoned Poirot, if this was merely a petty thief at work, why was everyone at the hostel so frightened?

The final part of The History of The Lord of the Rings, an enthralling account of the writing of the Book of the Century which contains many additional scenes and includes the unpublished Epilogue in its entirety. In the first section of Sauron Defeated Christopher Tolkien completes his fascinating study of The Lord of the Rings. Beginning with Sam's rescue of Frodo from the Tower of Cirith Ungol, and giving a very different account of the Scouring of the Shire, this section ends with versions of the hitherto unpublished Epilogue, in which, years after the departure of Bilbo and Frodo from the Grey Havens, Sam attempts to answer his children's questions. The second section is an edition of The Notion Club Papers. These mysterious papers, discovered in the early years of the twenty-first century, report the discussions of an Oxford club in the years 1986-7, in which after a number of topics, the centre of interest turns to the legend of Atlantis, the strange communications recevied by other members of the club from the past, and the violent irruption of the legend into the North-west of Europe. This series of fascinating books has now been repackaged to complement the distinctive and classic style of the 'black cover' A-format paperbacks of The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, The Silmarillion and Unfinished Tales.

A man returns from the dead, and the body of a mysterious stranger is found in his room...A few weeks after marrying an attractive young widow, Gordon Cloade is tragically killed by a bomb blast in the London blitz. Overnight, the former Mrs Underhay finds herself in sole possession of the Cloade family fortune. Shortly afterwards, Hercule Poirot receives a visit from the dead man's sister-in-law who claims she has been warned by 'spirits' that Mrs Underhay's first husband is still alive. Poirot has his suspicions when he is asked to find a missing person guided only by the spirit world. Yet what mystifies Poirot most is the woman's true motive for approaching him!

A wheelchair-bound Poirot returns to Styles, the venue of his first investigation, where he knows another murder is going to take place! The house guests at Styles seemed perfectly pleasant to Captain Hastings, there was his own daughter Judith, an inoffensive ornithologist called Norton, dashing Mr Allerton, brittle Miss Cole, Doctor Franklin and his fragile wife Barbara , Nurse Craven, Colonel Luttrell and his charming wife, Daisy, and the charismatic Boyd-Carrington. So Hastings was shocked to learn from Hercule Poirot's declaration that one of them was a five-times murderer. True, the ageing detective was crippled with arthritis, but had his deductive instincts finally deserted him?!

The Challenge Built to Last, the defining management study of the nineties, showed how great companies triumph over time and how long-term sustained performance can be engineered into the DNA of an enterprise from the verybeginning. But what about the company that is not born with great DNA? How can good companies, mediocre companies, even bad companies achieve enduring greatness? The Study For years, this question preyed on the mind of Jim Collins. Are there companies that defy gravity and convert long-term mediocrity or worse into long-term superiority? And if so, what are the universal distinguishing characteristics that cause a company to go from good to great? The Standards Using tough benchmarks, Collins and his research team identified a set of elite companies that made the leap to great results and sustained those results for at least fifteen years. How great? After the leap, the good-to-great companies generated cumulative stock returns that beat the general stock market by an average of seven times in fifteen years, better than twice the results delivered by a composite index of the world's greatest companies, including Coca-Cola, Intel, General Electric, and Merck.The Comparisons The research team contrasted the good-to-great companies with a carefully selected set of comparison companies that failed to make the leap from good to great. What was different? Why did one set of companies become truly great performers while the other set remained only good? Over five years, the team analyzed the histories of all twenty-eight companies in the study. After sifting through mountains of data and thousands of pages of interviews, Collins and his crew discovered the key determinants of greatness -- why some companies make the leap and others don't. The Findings The findings of the Good to Great study will surprise many readers and shed light on virtually every area of management strategy and practice. The findings include: Level 5 Leaders: The research team was shocked to discover the type of leadership required to achieve greatness. The Hedgehog Concept (Simplicity within the Three Circles): To go from good to great requires transcending the curse of competence. A Culture of Discipline: When you combine a culture of discipline with an ethic of entrepreneurship, you get the magical alchemy of great results. Technology Accelerators: Good-to-great companies think differently about the role of technology. The Flywheel and the Doom Loop: Those who launch radical change programs and wrenching restructurings will almost certainly fail to make the leap. Some of the key concepts discerned in the study, comments Jim Collins, "fly in the face of our modern business culture and will, quite frankly, upset some people. Perhaps, but who can afford to ignore these findings? "

An Award or Presentation Bible in the King James Version: ideal as a gift or to keep The full text of the Popular size King James or Authorized Version Bible, in a straightforward black imitation leather hardback binding.

The bestselling international classic on storytelling and visual communication "You must read this book." - Neil Gaiman Praised throughout the cartoon industry by such luminaries as Art Spiegelman, Matt Groening, and Will Eisner, Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics is a seminal examination of comics art: its rich history, surprising technical components, and major cultural significance. Explore the secret world between the panels, through the lines, and within the hidden symbols of a powerful but misunderstood art form.

Super-spy Paul Chavasse - one of Jack Higgins's most extraordinary heroes - embarks on a mission to Albania, only to find himself at the centre of a deadly double-cross, fighting for his life. It's a trip that agent Paul Chavasse will never forget. H is destination: the isolated republic of Albania on the Adriatic coast, at a time when the regime is at its most repressive and the people live in daily fear of the ruthless secret police. His job: to find a double agent whose cover has been blown an d put him out of commission, permanently. But what Chavasse doesn't know is that deep within the twisting channels of the perilous coastal marshes, someone has set a trap for him - someone who holds the keys of hell.

Agatha Christie's exotic seaside mystery thriller, reissued with a striking new cover designed to appeal to the latest generation of Agatha Christie fans and book lovers. It was not unusual to find the beautiful bronzed body of the sun-loving Arlena Stuart stretched out on a beach, face down. Only, on this occasion, there was no sun! she had been strangled. Ever since Arlena's arrival at the resort, Hercule Poirot had detected sexual tension in the seaside air. But could this apparent 'crime of passion' have been something more evil and premeditated altogether?

Three-in-one omnibus of Murder in Mesopotamia, Death on the Nile and Appointment with Death, plus an exclusive preface by Agatha Christie on the character of Poirot. There is nothing exotic about murder, no matter where it takes place. Away from home, Hercule Poirot finds that he cannot escape death, even when travelling across Mesopotamia, the Nile and Petra. MURDER IN MESOPOTAMIA At the Hassanieh dig deep in the Iraqi desert, the wife of a celebrated archaeologist is suffering from terrifying hallucinations. Apparent madness -- until a murderer strikes. DEATH ON THE NILE The tranquillity of a Nile cruise is shattered by the discovery that a young girl has been shot through the head. Stylish and beautiful, she had everything -- even enemies. APPOINTMENT WITH DEATH And among the towering red cliffs of Petra sits the corpse of Mrs Boynton. A tiny puncture mark on her wrist is the only sign of the fatal injection that killed her. Based on Agatha Christie's own experiences in the 1930s travelling with her husband, archaeologist Sir Max Mallowan, this trilogy of bestselling novels represents crime fiction at its very best. Here at last they are collected together in a single volume for Christmas.

Agatha Christie's most exotic murder mystery, reissued with a striking new cover designed to appeal to the latest generation of Agatha Christie fans and book lovers. The tranquillity of a cruise along the Nile is shattered by the discovery that Linnet Ridgeway has been shot through the head. She was young, stylish and beautiful, a girl who had everything -- until she lost her life. Hercule Poirot recalls an earlier outburst by a fellow passenger: 'I'd like to put my dear little pistol against her head and just press the trigger.' Yet in this exotic setting' nothing is ever quite what it seems!