The Prometheans are a secret society sworn to protect England and Elizabeth I. Kit Marley (Christo­pher Marlowe), playmaker, poet, and in­tel­li­gencer, has been killed by a dagger in the eye, at the behest of a rogue faction in the Prometheans. Another talented polemicist is required and Will Shake­speare is recruited. But Kit is not dead. He has been spirited to Faerie, where now he must serve their two queens. He becomes the lover of one, Morgan le Fay, and her son, Murchaud. Kit can return to the land of the …continue.

Robert Hughes has been in love with Barcelona and its people for four decades. This book—part selective history, part memoir—is adapted from a much larger, earlier book about Barcelona. Hughes is a partisan of Catalan culture and food. He brings us from its Roman origins as Barcino, Catalun­ya's founding as an in­de­pen­dent nation a thousand years ago by the Visigoth Wilfred the Hairy, up through the Olympics in 1992. This is no com­pre­hen­sive survey: he spends more time on submarine inventor Monturiol than on the Spanish Civil …continue.

Kvothe—the infamous, legendary Kvothe—has been living under an assumed name when the Chronicler tracks him down and asks him for his life story. Kvothe relates the story of his early years: his precocious talents for music and arcanism (magic); the happy childhood that ends when his parents and their troupe are murdered by an ancient evil; his years as a feral street child; and his early entrance into the University to study the Arcanum, where his brilliance makes him a star and his reck­less­ness brings him much …continue.

George Smiley has retired after the events of Call for the Dead. He is asked to look into the murder of the wife of a teacher at the exclusive Carne public school, as he can mix socially with the staff while the police cannot. She had sent a letter predicting that her husband would murder her. The couple were from a lower-class, Non­con­formist background. He had tried to assimilate, she had not, and it had rankled the snobs.

Smiley finds class prejudice and moral ambiguity as he …continue.

Le Carré's very first novel, Call for the Dead introduces his most famous character, George Smiley. After a harmonious meeting with Smiley to review his security clearance, Samuel Fennan goes home, writes a letter com­plain­ing of har­rass­ment, and commits suicide. But little things don't add up and Smiley starts in­ves­ti­gat­ing, only to be nearly murdered himself.

A strong debut, and amazingly short at 160 pages. Call provides some background about Smiley's very bad war, undercover in Nazi ter­ri­to­ries, and his rocky marriage.

For 13 months in 1933–34, John Dillinger robbed banks all over the Midwest, leaving behind a legend and con­tribut­ing to the growth of the FBI. Johnny Depp gives a charis­mat­ic per­for­mance of a ruthless and audacious killer, who endeared himself to the public as he liked to give money back to the customers of the banks he was robbing. Christian Bale is the cold, efficient lead FBI agent, in charge of a brutal and not very competent team, little better than the men they chased. Marion Cotillard is Dillinger's girlfriend who he's willing to brave all to be with after …continue.

The first Irene Adler novel by Douglas, im­me­di­ate­ly preceding Good Morning, Irene, which retells Conan Doyle's A Scandal in Bohemia from Irene and Nell's per­spec­tive.

We learn how the narrator Nell Huxleigh met Irene; of Irene's early years in London when she struggles with her singing career and develops a sideline as an in­ves­ti­ga­tor; how she meets Godfrey Norton, her future husband; how they despise each other at first, in the best rom-com tradition; her operatic triumphs in Warsaw that draw her to the attention of the …continue.

Charlie Parker, the hero of John Connolly's books, has always been able to rely on his friends, the former assassin Louis and his life-partner Angel, for backup when events turn blood­y—­most recently in The Unquiet.

Louis' past is catching up with him, leading to a bloody climax. As we explore that past, we learn how a gay, black teenager in a sundown town was recruited to be a “reaper”. When Louis and Angel are set up, Parker and other friends must go in after them.

Partly an ex­plo­ration of the …continue.

Sequel to Murder at the Mendel. Teenage pros­ti­tutes are being mutilated and murdered in Regina. Joanne Kilbourn and her family become entangled with some of these “dis­pos­able” girls, in a case that touches too closely to home.

In the previous novels, her children were important secondary characters. Here they become central to the story, each in their own way.

Joanne Kilbourn has moved to Saskatoon after the events of Deadly Ap­pear­ances, and renewed her childhood friendship with Sally Love. Sally is now a famous artist and the focus of con­tro­ver­sy: a huge fresco that she painted for the Mendel museum of the penises and vaginas of her former lovers is being picketed. As events turn ugly, Joanne will learn more than she ever wanted to know about Sally's and her own history.

Bowen writes knowl­edge­ably about art and artists and frustrated ambitions. Joanne's long, entangled history …continue.