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Northern Ireland, 1975. Violence has erupted on the streets of Belfast. After years as a sleepy, guerilla army, the IRA is clashing with Loyalist gangs and heavily armed British soldiers. But the Troubles have spilled beyond the small island: An ocean away, in the heart of Philadelphia's Irish enclave, a teenage girl finds a letter in her mailbox. Inside is a bullet, and the message is clear: The next one is for you or your family. From New York Times reporter and Pulitzer finalist Ali Watkins, this true-crime saga is the long-buried story of how a group of Philadelphia gunrunners armed the IRA at the height of the Troubles. A ragtag band of carpenters, family men and fugitives, the Philadelphia Five, as they came to be known, banded together, bolstering the fight for a united Ireland but fuelling the Troubles at an untold cost. This small group of Irish nationalists smuggled hundreds of rifles, rocket launchers, explosives and armour-piercing bullets across the Atlantic Ocean and into Northern Ireland. Whether they were skimming money from innocuous-seeming charities, coolly slipping weapons into hidden compartments of vans and houses, or scouring local graveyards for the names of dead Irishmen to use on firearm forms, the gunrunners approached their mission -to unite Ireland under one flag, by any means necessary -with ruthless poise, even as investigators closed in, members of their own movement began to turn on them, and bodies stacked up on all sides. A gripping tale of crime, rebellion and the hazy line between them, The Next One Is for You is the definitive account of America's hand in the Troubles - a conflict whose resonance is still felt on both sides of the Atlantic today.

A veteran nature writer walks the length of Britain in pursuit of spring, and of hopeFed up with bleak headlines of biodiversity loss, acclaimed nature writer Roger Morgan-Grenville sets out on a 1,000-mile walk through a British spring to see whether there are reasons to be hopeful about the natural world. His aim is to match the pace at which the oak leaves emerge, roughly 20 miles north each day. Fighting illness, blizzards and his own ageing body, he visits every main habitat between Lymington and Cape Wrath in an epic eight-week adventure, encountering, over and over again, the kindness of strangers and the inspiring efforts of those fighting heroically for nature. With surprising conclusions throughout, what unfolds is both life-affirming and life-changing.

A warm, reflective, and uplifting memoir about healing wounds, reclaiming a voice and discovering freedom through the open water.The open water. To the uninitiated, it represents the unknown, an expanse of mystery and uncertainty. But to those who brave the wild waters, it is so much more. A space to heal. A place of communion. A balm to quieten the mind, soothe the soul, and allow you to reconnect with the world and yourself.Emma Simpson discovered wild swimming after a period of immense pain. Lost in grief, disillusioned with life, and feeling increasingly untethered from the world, she instinctively felt the pull of the water. There she found an unexpected source of hope and strength, a profound sense of connection, and a glorious sisterhood of women - each with their own remarkable stories to tell. Interweaving the tales of these inspirational women with reflections on her own experiences, Emma explores themes ranging from devastating loss to birth and rebirth; chronic illness to body confidence. Whether describing the taste of an iceberg or a kiss from a baby whale, Breaking Waves is a love letter to womanhood and the open water. It''s also a celebration of community, renewal and the power of writing your own life story. Above all else, it is a joyous celebration of going with the flow.

For readers of Empire of Pain and Dopesick, an arresting deep dive into how Alzheimer's disease treatment has been set back by corrupt researchers, negligent regulators, and the profit motives of Big Pharma. Nearly seven million Americans live with Alzheimer's disease, a tragedy that is already projected to grow into a $1 trillion crisis by 2050. While families suffer and promises of pharmaceutical breakthroughs keep coming up short, investigative journalist Charles Piller's Doctored shows that we've quite likely been walking the wrong path to finding a cure all along - led astray by a cabal of self-interested researchers, government accomplices, and corporate greed. Piller begins with a whistleblower - Vanderbilt professor Matthew Schrag - whose work exposed a massive scandal. Schrag found that a University of Minnesota lab led by a precocious young scientist and a Nobel Prize-rumoured director delivered apparently falsified data at the heart of the leading hypothesis about the disease. Piller's revelations of Schrag's findings stunned the field and the public. From there, based on years of investigative reporting, Doctored exposes a vast network of deceit and its players, all the way up to the FDA. Piller uncovers evidence that hundreds of important Alzheimer's research papers are based on false data. In the process, he reveals how even against a flood of money and influence, a determined cadre of scientific renegades have fought back to challenge the field's institutional powers in service to science and the tens of thousands of patients who have been drawn into trials to test dubious drugs. It is a shocking tale with huge ramifications not only for Alzheimer's disease, but for scientific research, funding, and oversight at large.

Even in the third decade of the twenty-first century, it is still harder for women to make a career in science than men. Two centuries ago, however, at the beginning of the nineteenth century, when science as we know it was just getting started, the situation was far worse. Then, the very notion of a female scientist would have been regarded as something of an oxymoron.From bestselling and award-winning science writers John and Mary Gribbin, Against the Odds highlights the achievements of women who overcame hurdles and achieved scientific success (although not always as much as they deserved) in spite of male prejudice, as society changed over about 150 years, from the middle of the nineteenth century to the end of the twentieth century.There is Eunice Newton Foote, who discovered the carbon dioxide greenhouse effect; Chien-Shiung Wu, who discovered the law which allows matter to exist in the Universe today; and Barbara McClintock, who discovered how genes turn on and off.With a foreword from astrophysicist Jocelyn Bell Burnell, this book is not only a cautionary tale about the stifling effects of prejudice against women in science, but is a celebration of those who achieved success against the odds - and an inspiration for the next generation.

'Engagingly written, as unputdownable as a biography gets' Financial Mail'A rich and beautifully nuanced portrait of Milner ... a great feat, given all the paradoxical complexities of the man's life and character.' Duncan Campbell-Smith, former Financial Times and Economist journalistFrom the acclaimed biographer of Jan Smuts, a revealing new account of Empire-builder and First World War Cabinet minister Lord Alfred Milner. Alfred Milner was one of Britain's most famous empire builders who both contributed to the Allied victory in the First World War and left an indelible imprint on the history of South Africa. Yet his legacy is contested and little understood. Largely responsible for the Boer War - a conflict marking the beginning of the end of the British Empire - afterwards Milner helped to unify South Africa, but brewed resentment among Afrikaners. In Britain, from 1916, Milner was part of Lloyd George's five-man War Cabinet, and the driving force behind the Imperial War Cabinet which increased the status of Britain's Dominions. In this comprehensively researched, first full-length biography by a South African, Richard Steyn argues that Milner's reputation should not be solely defined by his eight years' service in South Africa. If he was the wrong man to send to that country, he was the right person in a far greater international conflict.

A secluded country house. A rogue Anglican Priest. Ceremonial sex and mislaid fortunes. This is the almost-forgotten story of Victorian Britain's strangest religious sect and its wealthy, mostly female, followers who believed they could ascend directly to heaven. Henry James Prince was a rogue Anglican Priest with a flare for the dramatic, and the founder of the Agapemone, or 'Abode of Love'. He also claimed to be the immortal conduit of The Holy Spirit and purportedly engaged in free love and ceremonial sex with his mostly female followers. But Prince's eventual death didn't mark the end of this strange set... he was promptly replaced by another. John Hugh Smyth-Pigott - otherwise known as the Clapton Messiah. The Abode transformed a sleepy, rural corner of Somerset into one of England's most notorious locations. While the followers shut themselves away and waited patiently for the end of the world, outrage grew - the word 'Agapemone' because a byword for licentiousness or idleness, used by Charles Dickens and Ford Maddox Ford. The reclusive Clapton Messiah became a fixture in the nation's papers, with frenzied efforts to discredit the organisation and undermine its leader. And still the cult grew. Expertly drawing on primary sources to tell the story of the Agapemonites in details for the first time, Stuart Flinders shines a light on the people drawn to the cult - the forced marriages; the swindled fortunes; the women condemned to asylums; and those who managed to escape from the Abode. It is also the story of two extraordinary men, whose claims of divinity were at the heart of this very British cult.

Buffalo, New York, 2022. Ten black people murdered. The killer, 18-year-old Payton Gendron, says he was driven by 'Great Replacement' - the conspiracy theory that a Jewish-led elite is replacing white people with black and brown people. This, and a spate of similar hate crimes, begs the question: what are the origins of such behaviour? Gavin Evans traces the historical roots of white supremacy. He begins in the 19th century with Charles Darwin and his cousin Francis Galton's race-based theories before looking at the spread of eugenics ideas throughout the UK, Europe and the United States, their Holocaust-prompted decline after the Second World War, and their revival in a different guise through the promotion of race science from the late 20th century. Evans also examines the hatching of 'Great Replacement' conspiratorial ideas in the 21st century - and their expression via alt-right forums to the minds of troubled young men with access to assault rifles. White Supremacy breaks new ground in showing the links between mainstream 'Replacement Theory' and the terrorist version cited by far-right killers. It also traces the thread between these ideas and the race science promoted both by the far right and establishment figures. It looks at what these ideas have in common with those promoted by, for example, the founder of eugenics.

Based on the hit BBC 5Live podcast series, The Trillion Dollar Conman is an audacious tale of an international fraud that is stranger than fiction. In 2009, Notts County FC were on the brink of bankruptcy when they were taken over by a mysterious company supposedly backed by the Bahraini royal family. The club was promised millions of pounds worth of investment and a list of marquee players, including Sol Campbell and Kasper Schmeichel were signed, in a recruitment drive led by former England manager Sven-Göran Eriksson, who was appointed to take the club all the way to the Premier League. However, within weeks, as the bills began to pile up, the dream came tumbling down as it transpired that the club, the players and the fans had been tricked by a convicted fraudster called Russell King. The world's oldest professional football club found itself at the centre of one of the most outlandish frauds in sporting and world history, which spanned the globe from Nottingham to North Korea, involving fake sheikhs, fast cars, broken promises and a trail of destruction.

In Knead to Know: A History of Baking, food historian and chef Neil Buttery takes the reader on a journey exploring the creation, evolution and cultural importance of some of our most beloved baked foods, whether they be fit for a monarch's table, or served from the bakestone of a lowly farm labourer. This book charts innovations, happy accidents and some of the most downright bizarre baked foods ever created. Everything has a history, but food history is special because it tells so much about our culture and society, our desires and our weaknesses, from the broad sweep of bread creating human civilisation to the invention of the wedding cake, the creation of the whisk, the purpose of the fish heads in a star-gazy pie, or the fact that mince pies used to be meaty. When we think of the evolution of something, we think every step is an improvement, an incremental elevation toward some peak of perfection as technology improves. This is not always the case. Sometimes things have to become simpler, sometimes knowledge is lost and skills forgotten. As a baker of historical foods, Neil Buttery demonstrates that forgotten recipes and traditional techniques are worth trying out (and mention a few that should perhaps be left in the past). The reader will be inspired by the characters, creations and inventions of the past to be better and more adventurous bakers.

On a sunny May morning in 1990, a bank courier strode out of the Bank of England and, minutes later, was robbed at knifepoint of 301 bearer bonds valued at £292 million. It was the biggest theft in British history. The thing is... when Keith Cheeseman received a call from a disbarred lawyer connected to London's underworld and attended a meeting on the night of the robbery, he counted £427 million in bonds - £135 million more than the Bank of England had reported. As Keith set out to launder the bonds, Scotland Yard and the FBI were always one step ahead in tracking them down. Over the next eighteen months, two gangland figures were shot dead and more than eighty people were arrested. Keith was the only man ever jailed for the crime. Keith Cheeseman is the last of the old-time gangsters, a con man who detests violence, wears Savile Row suits and gold watches, and loves classic cars and good dining. He bought non-league Dunstable football club and signed Manchester United star George Best to play for the team. He knew the legendary Kray twins and killer Frankie Fraser once threatened to snuff him out him over a game of chess. So what happened to the missing £135 million?In this breathtaking adventure, featuring colourful characters from showbusiness alongside royalty, the IRA and even Pablo Escobar, Clifford Thurlow reveals Keith Cheeseman's incredible true story for the first time.

The remarkable story of Margaret Paston, whose letters form the most extensive collection of personal writings by a medieval English woman.Drawing on what is the largest archive of medieval correspondence relating to a single family in the UK, God''s Own Gentlewoman explores what everyday life was like during the turbulent decades at the height of the Wars of the Roses. From political conflicts and familial in-fighting; forbidden love affairs and clandestine marriages; bloody battles and sieges; fear of plague and sudden death; friendships and animosity; childbirth and child mortality, Margaret''s letters provide us with unparalleled insight into all aspects of life in late medieval England.Diane Watt is a world expert on medieval women''s writing, and God''s Own Gentlewoman explores how Margaret''s personal archive provides an insight into her activities, experiences, emotions and relationships and the life of a medieval woman who was at times absorbed by the mundane and domestic, but who also found herself caught up in the most extraordinary situations and events.

The Spycatcher affair remains one of the most intriguing moments in the history of British intelligence and a pivotal point in the public's relationship with the murky world of espionage and security. It lifted the lid on alleged Soviet infiltration of British services and revealed a culture of law-breaking, bugging and burgling. But how much do we know about the story behind the scandal?In To Catch a Spy, Tim Tate reveals the astonishing true story of the British government's attempts to silence whistleblower Peter Wright and hide the truth about Britain's intelligence services and political elites. It's a story of state-sanctioned cover-up plots; of the government lying to Parliament and courts around the world; and of stories leaked with the intention to mislead and deceive. This is a tale of high treason and low farce. Drawing on thousands of pages of previously unpublished court transcripts, the contents of secret British government files, and original interviews with many of the key players in the Spycatcher trials, it draws back the curtain on a hidden world. A world where spies, politicians and Britain's most senior civil servants conspired to ride roughshod over the law, prevented the public from hearing about their actions and mounted a cynical conspiracy to deceive the world. It is the story of Peter Wright's ruthless and often lawless obsession to uncover Russian spies, both real and imagined, his belated determination to reveal the truth and the lengths to which the British government would go to silence him.

In The Kremlin's Noose Amy Knight tells the riveting story of Vladimir Putin and the oligarch Boris Berezovsky, who forged a relationship in the early years of the Yeltsin era. Berezovsky later played a crucial role in Putin's rise to the Russian presidency in March 2000. When Putin began dismantling Boris Yeltsin's democratic reforms, Berezovsky came into conflict with the new Russian leader by reproaching him publicly. Their relationship quickly disintegrated into a bitter feud played out against the backdrop of billion-dollar financial deals, Kremlin in-fighting, and international politics. Dubbed the "Godfather of the Kremlin" by the slain Russian-American journalist Paul Klebnikov, Berezovsky was a successful businessman and media mogul who had an outsized role in Russia after 1991. Worth a reported $3 billion by 1997, Berezovsky engineered the reelection of Yeltsin as president in 1996 and negotiated an end to the 1995-96 Chechen war. Despite his own wealth, power, and influence, once he became Putin's enemy, Berezovsky was forced into exile in Britain, where he waged a determined campaign to topple Putin. Kremlin authorities responded with bogus criminal charges and demanded Berezovsky's extradition. Death threats soon followed. In March 2013, after losing a British court battle with another Russian oligarch, Berezovsky was found dead at his ex-wife's mansion outside London. Whether he died from suicide or murder remains a mystery. The Kremlin's Noose sheds crucial new light on the Kremlin's volatile politics under Yeltsin and Putin, helping us understand why democracy in Russia failed so badly. Knight provides a fascinating narrative of Putin's rise to power and his authoritarian rule, told through the prism of his relationship with Russia's once most powerful oligarch, Boris Berezovsky.

Tracing uranium's past, and how it intersects with our understanding of other radioactive elements, this book aims to disentangle our attitudes and to unpick the atomic mindset. Chain Reactions looks at the fascinating, often-forgotten, stories that can be found throughout the history of the element. Ranging from glassworks to penny stocks; medicines to weapons; something to be feared to a powerful source of energy. This global history explores the scientific history of the element, but also shines a light on its cultural and social impact. By understanding our nuclear past, we can move beyond the ideological opposition to technologies and encourage a more nuanced dialogue about whether it is feasible - and desirable - to have a genuinely nuclear-powered future.

The definitive history of Sunderland AFC. Formed by a group of teachers nearly 150 years ago in 1879, Sunderland AFC have a long and storied history in English football. The club has won six top-flight titles, only five other teams have won more, and they have lifted the FA Cup twice - once in 1937 and once in 1973. The Black Cats are renowned for having one of the largest and most loyal fan bases in the country, and records have regularly been broken for attendance figures at the Stadium of Light. After hitting a nadir with back-to-back demotions from the Premier League down to the third division in 2018, the club is now back on the ascendancy and plotting a return to the top-flight. Drawing on interviews with key players, managers and staff members, esteemed club historian Rob Mason delves into Sunderland's 150-year history, charting the glorious highs and the ignominious lows to trace how the Black Cats have come to dominate football in the North-East.

Are you getting enough? Bestselling travel writer Ben Aitken wasn't. Increasingly flat and decreasingly zen, he knew that something had to change. Unnerved into action, Ben gave burnout the boot and stress the cold-shoulder by embarking on a whimsical journey into the serious business of having a laugh. He did a pilgrimage in Spain and a cruise of the Baltic. He endured a summer camp in Kent and a theme park in Derby. He injured his nose in Brighton (wakeboarding) and pulled his hamstring in London (ecstatic dancing). And when he wasn't on the road, he searched for merriment at home: by giving bridge a go, the crossword a chance, and gardening a crack of the whip. By incorporating the thoughts and findings of key thinkers and boffins, and by reflecting on less obvious sources of levity like conversation and community, Here Comes the Fun offers a satisfying balance of the playful and profound, the serious and silly, the thoughtful and fun.

Accompanying her parents to Berlin in the 1930s, Martha Dodd knew almost nothing about Adolf Hitler or the Nazis. Yet almost overnight, she stepped into the spotlight, and found herself at the over-heated centre of Hitler's 'New Germany', befriending and dating several high-ranking Nazis, including the then-head of the Gestapo.An affair with a dashing Russian diplomat saw her recruited as a spy, and so began a long and tumultuous career in both Berlin and America, including infiltrating First Lady Eleanor Rooevelt's inner circle and playing a key role in Henry Wallace's disastrous 1948 presidential campaign.Betrayed by a Hollywood-hustler-turned-double-agent, Martha spent years under deep FBI surveillance - escaping twice - and went to ground in Cold War Prague, sad, lonely, rich and bored, living out her final decades in a Communist Sunset Boulevard.Largely forgotten, Martha Dodd began emerging as an iconic historical figure in the early 2000s. While her scandalous behaviour and pro-Soviet leanings were never much in dispute, the actual matter of her guilt remained unresolved. Using recently released KGB archived information and FBI files, in Traitor's Odyssey, author and journalist Brendan McNally corrects this, telling the full epic of Martha Dodd's life for the first time, casting her in a new and bright light.

Can you remember the first time you encountered true darkness? The kind that remains as black and inky whether your eyes are open or closed? Where you can't see your hand in front of your face?Jacqueline Yallop can. It was in an unfamiliar bedroom while holidaying in Yorkshire as a child, and ever since then she has been fascinated by the dark, by our efforts to capture or avoid it, by the meanings we give to it and the way our brains process it.Taking a journey into the dark secrets of place, body and mind, she documents a series of night-time walks, exploring both the physical realities of darkness and the psychological dark that helps shape our sense of self. Exploring our enduring love-hate relationship with states of darkness, she considers how we attempt to understand and contain the dark, and, as she comes to terms with her father's deteriorating Alzheimer's, she reflects on how our relationship with the dark can change with time and circumstance.Darkness captivates, baffles and appals us. It's a shifty thing of many textures and many moods. It can be an absence and a presence, a solace and a threat, a beginning and an end. Into the Dark is the story of the many darks that fascinate and assail us. It faces the darkness in all its guises and mysteries, celebrating it as a thing of beauty while peering into the void.

Women make over 80 percent of healthcare decisions in the U.S. yet have been excluded from designing the health system for too long. It was only 1993 when women and people of color were officially included in clinical trials. Heart attacks are the number one killer of women worldwide, but women are 50 percent more likely to be given a wrong diagnosis. Only four percent of all healthcare research and development is focused on women's health issues. From periods and childbirth to menopause, female pain has been normalized, as society shrugs and says "Welcome to being a woman" instead of coming up with better solutions.In The Vagina Business, award-winning journalist Marina Gerner PhD takes an eye-opening-and often times shocking-look at the inequities when it comes to scientific research and the funding of female-focused health companies. She exposes the obstacles entrepreneurs around the world face in the boardroom and beyond. Most of all, she shows us that it doesn't have to be this way. From a life-saving bra to non-hormonal contraception and new takes on fertility and menopause, she shines a light on innovation that matters. Women should not be denied solutions to health issues just because people are embarrassed to talk about vaginas. We deserve much better.

In this provocative new book, Lucy Ash reveals how, under Putin, religion is being stripped of its spiritual content and used as a weapon to control the population in a way never seen before. Orthodox clerics and their acolytes are trying to drag Russia backwards into a new Middle Ages.Combining historical research with vivid present-day reportage, The Baton and the Cross explores the impact the Church is having on millions of Russians' lives - from the tower blocks of Moscow and the big cities to far-flung villages in Siberia. Delving into the underbelly of politics, state security and big money, Ash shows how these forces have formed an unholy alliance with Orthodoxy.

Brainjacking takes us on a journey through advertising and marketing's attempts to understand and influence our thoughts and desires, from the earliest billboards to the technologies of the future. To discover how science intersects with our desires and decisions, the book pulls together three strands that have a huge impact on our lives: advertising, how much privacy we can and should have in the new electronic world, and how to draw the line been information and influence. With Brian Clegg as your guide, this is a book that will help you unpick the insidious world of brainjacking. Expertly pulling together different strands on disparate topics including AI, Big Data, subliminal advertising and more, this essential investigation shows how new and old technology and science can be combined to influence human behaviour and beliefs.

For years, one group of Americans has worked as foot-soldiers for the most authoritarian regimes around the planet. In the process, they've not only entrenched dictatorships and spread kleptocratic networks, but they've secretly guided U.S. policy without the rest of America even being aware. And now, journalist Casey Michel contends some of them have begun turning their sights on American democracy itself.These Americans are known as foreign lobbyists, and many of them spent years ushering dictatorships directly into the halls of Washington, all while laundering the reputations of the most heinous, repressive regimes in the process. These lobbyists include figures like Ivy Lee, the inventor of the public relations industry - a man who whitewashed Mussolini, opened doors to the Soviets, and advised the Nazis on how to sway American audiences. They include people like Paul Manafort, who invented lobbying as we know it - and who then took his talents to autocrats from Ukraine to the Philippines, and then back to the White House. And they now include an increasing number of Americans elsewhere: in law firms and consultancies, among PR specialists and former lawmakers, and even within think tanks and universities.Many of these lobbyists have transformed into proxies for dictators and strongmen wherever they can be found. And for years, they've escaped scrutiny.In Foreign Agents, Casey Michel shines a light on these foreign lobbyists, and all the damage and devastation they have caused in Washington and elsewhere. From Moscow to Beijing, from far-right nationalists to far-left communists, from anti-American autocrats to pro-Western authoritarians, these foreign lobbyists have helped any illiberal, anti-democratic government they can find. And after decades of success in installing dictator after dictator, and in tilting American policy in the process, some of these lobbyists have now begun trying to end America's democratic experiment, once and for all.

Everyone has an interest in the weather, whether it's to check the prospects for a day out or to know when best to harvest a crop. The Earth's weather systems also provide some of the most dramatic forces of nature, from the vast release of energy in a lightning flash to the devastating impact of tornadoes and hurricanes.For centuries, our only real guide to future weather was folklore, but with the introduction of the first weather forecasts and maps in Victorian times, attempts were made to give some warning of the weather to come. Until relatively recently, these forecasts could be wildly inaccurate - think of Michael Fish's denial that there was a storm on the way the night before the UK's great storm of 1987. This was due to the mathematically chaotic nature of weather systems, first discovered in the 1960s, understanding of which would transform forecasting from the 1990s and mean that meteorologists became amongst the foremost users of supercomputers.

Veteran traveler and textile expert Chris Aslan explores the Silk, Wool and Cotton Roads of Central Asia. Three textile roads tangle their way through Central Asia. The famous Silk Road united east and west through trade. Older still was the Wool Road, of critical importance when houses made from wool enabled nomads to traverse the inhospitable winter steppes. Then there was the Cotton Road, marked by greed, colonialism and environmental disaster. At this intersection of human history, fortunes were made and lost through shimmering silks, life-giving felts and gossamer cottons. Chris Aslan, who has spent fifteen years living and working in the region, expertly unravels the strands of this tangled history and embroiders them with his own experiences of life in the heart of Asia.

1950s France. A British establishment figure. A shocking crime. A miscarriage of justice. The search for truth. In 1952, in a peaceful corner of Provence, a farmer's son stumbled upon a terrible scene. Three bodies: a husband and wife shot dead, their ten-year-old daughter savagely beaten to death. They were all British. So begins one of the most notorious murder cases in French history. Sir Jack Drummond was a senior advisor to the British government, a household name who was respected and admired. His fame made the case a cause celebre in France and resulted in the swift conviction of a local farmer, but questions about Drummond's life and death remain unanswered. In this bold new investigation, Stephanie Matthews and Daniel Smith strip away the prejudice and propaganda to reveal a grave miscarriage of justice. A light is shone on Drummond's secret life in the shadows of the Cold War, painting a portrait of an enigmatic man who may not have been the innocent holidaymaker he appeared to be, and recasting one of the twentieth century's most notorious murders in a fascinating and important new light.

'A gripping read for anyone who cares about what we're doing to the planet and how we can change it' DAVID SHUKMAN, FORMER BBC NEWS SCIENCE EDITOR'Searing observations focused on our need to protect biodiversity - A tour de force' SIR TIM SMIT OBE, CO-FOUNDER OF THE EDEN PROJECT'An informative, uplifting and truly important book' JONATHON PORRITT, AUTHOR AND CAMPAIGNEROne woman's journey through South America - and the devastating story of our planet's disappearing biodiversityPedalling hard for thirteen months, eco adventurer Kate Rawles cycled the length of the Andes on an eccentric bicycle she built herself. The Life Cycle charts her mission to find out why biodiversity is so important, what's happening to it, and what can be done to protect it. From the Pacific Ocean to rainforests and salt flats, Kate learns that armadillos can cross rivers by holding their breath, that Colombia has more species of birds than North America and Europe combined, and that in threatening ecosystems, we're tearing down our own life support system. En route, she witnesses the devastation of goldmining and oil drilling but finds hope in the incredible people working to regenerate habitats and communities. As she reaches the 'end of the world', she realises that to tackle biodiversity loss we all have a role to play.