Trust in our politicians is at an all-time low. We're in a "post-truth" era, where feelings trump facts, and where brazen rhetoric beats honesty. But do politicians lie more than they used to? And do we even want them to tell the truth? In a history full of wit and political acumen, Private Eye journalist Adam Macqueen dissects the gripping stories of the biggest political lies of the last half century, from the Profumo affair to Blair's WMDs to Boris Johnson's £350 million for the NHS. Co...

When Liberal Party leader Jeremy Thorpe hired thugs to kill his ex-lover, they botched it. What if they had succeeded? It is February 1976, and the naked corpse of a shockingly underage rent boy is fished out of a pond on Hampstead Heath. Since the police don't seem to care, 20-year-old Tommy Wildeblood—himself a former 'Dilly boy' prostitute—finds himself investigating. Dodging murderous Soho hoodlums and the agents of a more sinister power, Tommy uncovers another, even more shocking crim...

Stored in Whitehall's archives are everything from blood-chilling warnings of imminent nuclear attack to comical details of daily life in the corridors of power. Concerned notes from ministers on the subject of the Heir to the Throne's potential brainwashing by Welsh terrorists are shelved alongside worries about housemaids 'on the wobble' at Chequers.Detailed and surprising plans for royal funerals sit beside reports on suspected spies in the showbiz world and bawdy poetry about t...

'A brilliantly eclectic mix of dark, unsettling tales' Joanne Burn, author of The Bone Hunters'Guaranteed to give you goosebumps' Best Magazine'Atmospheric collection of spooky stories' Observer'A lovely present' The Spectator'Inspired by all the great ghost story writers' BBC Open Book Editor's Pick'Tis the seas...

It's 1984. Tommy Wildeblood, the hero of Beneath the Streets, has put his days as a Piccadilly rent boy and scandal-hunting sleuth behind him and is studying at the radical Polytechnic of North London. But politics isn't ready to leave him alone. With his school convulsed by the battle against National Front infiltrators and the miners' strike splitting the country, everyone has to pick a side. Tommy knows where his sympathies lie–and not just because revolutionary summer camps and trips t...

S ome truths should stay guardedHobbe's Folly is a deeply unsettling tale of ghostly estates and other dimensions from the author of Haunted Tales, Adam Macqueen.1904: Naive bookseller's assistant Henry Canning arrives at Hareswood Lodge to catalogue the library of its late owner. But he's unprepared for the horrors that lurk within Matthew Hobbe's collection – and something even more terrible that still lingers in the roo...

William Hesketh Lever - soap-boiler, social reformer, MP, tribal chieftain, multi-millionaire and Lord of the Western Isles - was one of the most extraordinary men ever to leave his mark on Britain.Beliefs far ahead of their times - the welfare state, votes for women, workers' rights - jostled in his mind with ideas that were fantastically bonkers - the world's problems could be solved by moving populations from country to country, ballroom dancing could save the soul and the only ...

In the age of AIDS and Section 28: a secret that could change political history It is 1987, and Tommy Wildeblood has put his days as a Piccadilly Circus rent boy long behind him. Slightly to his own surprise, he is now a rookie teacher at a South London comprehensive. But when Margaret Thatcher' s government launches a chilling attack on the ' promotion' of homosexuality in a new law known as Section 28, Tommy can' t stay silent – especially when he realises he may have information about o...

**Household gizmos with a mind of their own.Constant cold calls from unknown numbers.And the creeping suspicion that none of this is real.**Reality, and Other Stories is a gathering of deliciously chilling entertainments - stories to be read as the evenings draw in and the days are haunted by all the ghastly schlock, uncanny technologies and absurd horrors of modern life.

WINNER OF THE COSTA BIOGRAPHY PRIZE 2020'This is the story of arguably one of the most important, yet least known, events in modern British history. Lee's journey and fight for justice are both inspiring and enraging' AKALAWhat would you do if the people you trusted to uphold the law committed a crime against you? Who would you turn to? And how long would you fight them for?On 28th September 1985, Lee Lawrence's mot...

One of Vogue’s Best Books of the Year“Reading the novel is akin to spending time with a witty if merciless observer of other peopl****e’s idiocies. There**’**s something of a latter-day Holden Caulfield about the narrator…it possesses an enlivening, claustrophobic charge.” —The SpectatorFollowing a young woman over the course of one outrageous and insufferable downtown dinner party...

**Named a Most Anticipated Release of 2025 by Vulture • Literary Hub • BBC • RTÉ • OutSmart Magazine’s Must-Read Queer Books of 2025 • The Guardian’s Best Fiction of 2025A stunning debut novel from the acclaimed young Irish poet Seán Hewitt, reminiscent of Garth Greenwell and Douglas Stuart in the intensity of its evocation of sexual awakening.**Set in a remote village in the North of England, Open, Heaven unfolds over t...