A superb conspiracy thriller set in Venice, from a Sunday Times bestseller.********They found the woman's body on the steps of a church, washed up by Venice's winter tides. A tattoo on her wrist matched graffiti in an abandoned hospital, not used since the Second World War.It's Captain Kat Tapo's first murder case, and she'll do anything to get to the truth. But as the hunt for the killer intensifies, she discovers secrets from Italy's dark wartime past that...

Wiltshire is one of the best counties in Britain for architectural fancy, for the county’s residents have expressed their passion for building in a plethora of styles including Gothic, Rustic, classical, Monumental, Chinese, Indian, Italianate and Japanese. We can see their ingenuity and eccentricity in an equally wide variety of building types, including shell houses, grottoes, pagodas, towers, temples, summer houses, tea houses, gazebos, belvederes, lodges, gatehouses, pavilions, arches,...

A superb conspiracy thriller set in Venice, from a Sunday Times bestseller.********The girl in the feathered mask was just another Carnival reveller, dancing in the streets at midnight, anonymous in the Venice crowds. So nobody noticed when she was bundled into a van and driven high into the hills. It was several hours later that she was finally reported missing.Captain Kat Tapo, of the Venice police, is considered too headstrong to lead a high-profile kidna...

The Abduction has begun…The teenage daughter of a US soldier disappeared in Venice last night. Now clues are appearing on anonymous website Carnivia.com - and the police are always one step behind. Kat Tapo of the Venice Carabinieri and US intelligence analyst Holly Boland are working together to find the girl, but the race to save her will uncover a conspiracy that powerful men will kill to keep hidden.

How does a Middle Eastern community create a modern image through its expression of heritage and authenticity? In Among the Jasmine Trees: Music and Modernity in Contemporary Syria, Jonathan H. Shannon investigates expressions of authenticity in Syria's musical culture, which is particularly known for embracing and preserving the Arab musical tradition, and which has seldom been researched in depth by Western scholars. Music plays a key role in the process of self-imaging by virtue of its ...

Why do people struggling with poverty often make decisions that seem to perpetuate their situation? The answer lies in the scarcity mindset – the cognitive burden that limits a person's ability to focus on long-term goals when their immediate needs are not being met. This book explores the science of cognitive load and provides insights into the behavior of individuals facing resource scarcity. The author reveals the "hidden mechanics" of how the scarcity mindset depletes our cognitive res...

The substantially revised and updated third edition of Everyday Life in the Muslim Middle East focuses on the experiences of ordinary men, women, and children from the region. Readers will gain a grassroots appreciation of Middle East life, culture, and society that recognizes the impact of wars and uprisings as well as changes to Islamic practice due to advances in technology. The book also explores the influence of social media on politics and labor relations and the changing status of w...

Performing al-Andalus explores three musical cultures that claim a connection to the music of medieval Iberia, the Islamic kingdom of al-Andalus, known for its complex mix of Arab, North African, Christian, and Jewish influences. Jonathan Holt Shannon shows that the idea of a shared Andalusian heritage animates performers and aficionados in modern-day Syria, Morocco, and Spain, but with varying and sometimes contradictory meanings in different social and political contexts. As he traces th...

“Sins don’t destroy people here. Dreams do.”In a small city somewhere in an oil-rich Canadian province just east of the Rockies, a political scandal has erupted: an aging cabinet minister has struck and killed a member of his local constituency executive with his half-ton truck, in broad daylight. But the premier suspects that there is more to this “accident” than meets the eye—and he wants to know the real reasons behind it before the media or his political rivals do.Enter...

On her way home from the shops, Nina Borg is attacked. Dazed and half-conscious, she hears her assailant ask for her forgiveness. Only later does she understand that this isn't for what he's just done, but for what he plans to do to. For the first time, she's the primary target of a hit, and it slowly dawns on her that this case is connected to a surprising and dangerous friendship among three young men from Manila.

Selected for the Radio 2 Book Club.He has a face you love. A voice you trust. To survive you must kill him.The rules of survival are handed from mother to daughter. Inherited, like the curse that has stalked Hannah and her family across centuries.He changes his appearance at will, speaks with a stolen voice and hides behind the face of a beloved, waiting to strike.Generation after generation, he has destroyed them. And all they could do was ...

Grace Scott returns from her honeymoon with her new husband, Mac, to find a man lying dead in their Edinburgh flat. They don't know who he is or where he's come from. Then, three months later, Grace finds a note tucked inside one of the wedding gifts, sending her on a journey to discover what really happened. A journey that becomes more dangerous the closer she comes to the truth… what she discovers will change her life forever.